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Ulta Beauty urged to remove Flock Safety cameras from stores

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Ulta Beauty urged to remove Flock Safety cameras from stores

UltraViolet, a women-led gender justice organization, launched its “Drop Flock” campaign this month, calling on Ulta Beauty to terminate contracts with Flock Safety and other mass surveillance companies. The organization said its petition had surpassed 15,000 signatures as of Sept. 8.

“Ulta Beauty has built a multibillion-dollar business on women’s trust,” UltraViolet Campaign Director Jenna Sherman said in a statement accompanying the campaign’s launch. “Putting Flock, an invasive mass surveillance system, right outside its stores without customer knowledge or consent is a direct violation of that trust.”

Prism Reports

The Flock backlash is coming for retail

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The Flock backlash is coming for retail

Ultraviolet, a nonprofit women's advocacy group, put out a petition on August 26, titled "Hey Ulta: Mass Surveillance Isn't Pretty," calling on the beauty retail giant to end its contract with Flock, which the group sees as a threat to women's privacy and safety.
"While the majority of Flock ALPR cameras are deployed via contracts with law enforcement agencies — which is where much of the abuse we're concerned about takes place — retailers like Ulta are also playing a key role in normalizing AI surveillance and feeding the personal data of everyday people into a vast network that could be accessed by all kinds of actors that don't always have our best interest in mind," Jenna Sherman, a campaign director for Ultraviolet, told Business Insider.

Business Insider

Fragrance Trend: Dairy, Baby

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Fragrance Trend: Dairy, Baby

Activist organization UltraViolet posted online that Ulta Beauty is one of Flock’s “biggest commercial customers” and the internet is not happy. Sr. Director of Brand Communication at the org, Rebecca Gerber, told me they got this information from a press release on Flock’s website as well as an interview with the head of Loss Prevention at Ulta, Rory Stallard, and Flock, where it was noted that post-COVID, Ulta saw an increase in violence at their stores and they implemented technology to help with that.

Kirbie Johnson

Shoppers outraged after learning Ulta Beauty stores are allowing Flock cameras

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Shoppers outraged after learning Ulta Beauty stores are allowing Flock cameras

“At a time when women seeking reproductive healthcare, immigrants, protesters, journalists, and others are increasingly being monitored and targeted, the consequences of Flock’s mass surveillance system are staggering,” the organization said in an Instagram post. “We shouldn't have to trade our privacy and safety for a trip to Ulta.⁠”

The Independent

Flock Camera Backlash Now Extends to Beauty Shops

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Flock Camera Backlash Now Extends to Beauty Shops

Ulta shoppers may now have more to worry about than running out of mascara. The beauty retailer has quietly installed Flock Safety's automated license plate reader cameras at some stores, a move that's triggered calls for a boycott and a new pressure campaign from gender justice group Ultra Violet, Allure reports. Flock's AI-driven system logs plates and other vehicle details and can share data with local police, raising fears over mass surveillance and tracking of protesters, immigrants, and people seeking abortions.

Newser

Ulta’s use of Flock technology causes upset online

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Ulta’s use of Flock technology causes upset online

Social media users flooded Ulta Beauty’s Instagram posts this week sharing their frustration about the company’s work with surveillance technology provider Flock after a campaign by activist organization UltraViolet went viral.

Retail Dive

Ulta Beauty Faces Fury Over AI Cameras That Track Customers’ Licence Plates: ‘They Can Watch You Shopping’

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Ulta Beauty Faces Fury Over AI Cameras That Track Customers’ Licence Plates: ‘They Can Watch You Shopping’

"UltraViolet, a gender-justice organisation, has launched a campaign titled Hey Ulta: Mass surveillance isn't pretty. The group is asking Ulta Beauty to cut its relationship with Flock Safety and shut down its cameras in its car parks.

The petition argues that Flock's wider network of AI-powered cameras can be used to track people's movements through their vehicle licence plates. UltraViolet also argues that Flock's technology could enable surveillance targeting women seeking reproductive healthcare, protesters and immigrant communities.

'Flock's dystopian license plate readers are supplying the data needed to carry out these attacks,' the organisation states in its petition, adding that the systems are 'often wrong and are regularly used to stalk women'.

Fashion Times UK

Ulta Beauty Is Using Flock Cameras at Some Stores

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Ulta Beauty Is Using Flock Cameras at Some Stores

Although Flock Safety noted that the company had partnered with Ulta Beauty back in July 2025, the general public seems to have been made aware after a petition by Ultra Violet, a gender justice nonprofit that “works to create a more inclusive world for women and gender expansive people,” says Jenna Sherman, Ultra Violet’s campaign director whose work focuses on the intersection of tech and gender. The petition demands “that Ulta sever all ties with Flock and immediately shut off Flock cameras in Ulta parking lots.”

Allure

She Questioned Flock Cameras at Ulta, and It Sparked a Bigger Debate About Privacy

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She Questioned Flock Cameras at Ulta, and It Sparked a Bigger Debate About Privacy

The advocacy group UltraViolet immediately launched a public campaign dubbed “Hey Ulta: Mass surveillance isn’t pretty.“ Her video has since become part of a campaign by women's rights organisation UltraViolet, which is calling on Ulta Beauty to sever its relationship with Flock and remove the cameras from its parking lots. UltraViolet describes Ulta as one of Flock's biggest commercial customers. That characterisation comes from UltraViolet; the organisation does not publicly provide a figure for the size or value of Ulta's contract.

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