The head of a controversial surveillance camera company has dragged his wife into a growing privacy debacle after leaked audio captured him claiming she told him to 'never apologize.'
Garrett Langley, the CEO of Flock Safety, made the remarks during a private gathering of police chiefs in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday, according to audio obtained by 404 Media.
Langley, whose company has faced a backlash over its network of license plate-reading cameras, claimed that protests against Flock were not genuine and that Russian bots were behind much of the online outrage.
'I give my wife a lot of credit. She was, like, you should never apologize,' Langley said, according to the outlet.
'Sure, people make mistakes. I've made a lot of mistakes in the last nine years. I made a lot of mistakes this summer. But we do good work.'
In July, the CEO apologized to activists who protested his company after he previously called their group a 'terroristic organization,' according to Forbes.
Langley also said his wife had chimed in on his theory that Russian bots were behind the online backlash against Flock.
Garrett Langley, the CEO of Flock Safety, was captured on leaked audio claiming his wife told him to 'never apologize'
Langley was pictured alongside his wife at a technology conference in Idaho earlier this year
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'It went down 50 percent last week when Ukraine bombed a Russian data center with a drone. Literally 50 percent overnight,' Langley said.
'And so look, I'm the last person, my wife as well, she's like "This is crazy, these people are getting paid to say these things."'
Langley provided no evidence to support his claims.
The CEO said the alleged bot activity had prompted genuine backlash from activists.
'Inorganic activity has led to organic activity, but when I look at protests across the country, it is the same people with the same signs and the same message,' Langley added.
'That's not normal. That's not organic at all.'
At the conference, Langley also admitted that he would prefer never to speak to the media again.
'I'd like to never do media again if that's possible,' Langley said.
'The media gets to say whatever they want to say about you,' he added at another point.
Flock cameras have faced a backlash from civil liberties campaigners over privacy concerns
His remarks come as privacy advocates warn that Flock's surveillance system can create a searchable record of people's car's everyday movements.
Flock has acknowledged that it has deployed around 100,000 cameras across America, according to the BBC.
The roadside devices photograph passing vehicles and record their license plates, locations and precise time of travel, allowing separate sightings to be pieced together into a detailed journey.
While police say the technology helps locate stolen vehicles and criminal suspects, civil liberties groups argue that innocent motorists can also be swept into the system and their movements searched without officers first obtaining a warrant.
Concerns have intensified amid allegations that officers used the system to monitor former partners and cases in which incorrect alerts allegedly led to innocent motorists being detained.
The company says information is deleted after 30 days by default, although retention periods can vary under local contracts and state laws. Flock also maintains that its customers control access to their information and that searches are logged and can be audited.
Flock has acknowledged that it has deployed around 100,000 cameras across America
However, a growing number of American communities are imposing restrictions on the technology or abandoning the company altogether.
The American Civil Liberties Union said in June that more than 55 communities had ended Flock contracts during the previous year, citing fears that the technology could enable warrantless surveillance, federal access to locally collected records and searches without sufficient municipal oversight.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Flock Safety for comment.
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