COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Concerns over data privacy and how the Cobb County-based Home Depot company shares or uses data are now subject to a battle between the company’s board of directors and a group of activist investor shareholders.
Zevin Asset Management, a Massachusetts investment service which describes itself as an investment manager with an expertise in socially responsible investing, has concerns over how The Home Depot works with Flock Safety, and the risks it sees with the data from that partnership.
Zevin is working to secure a vote to audit how Home Depot’s flock data is used when it comes to federal government access and data privacy.
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A Zevin spokesperson said both Flock Safety and home Depot state they do not share their data with ICE or other federal immigration enforcement.
However, Zevin said there is documented evidence that federal agents have “repeatedly accessed Flock network data through local law enforcement intermediaries—in some cases without the knowledge of the local agencies themselves."
The investment company said Home Depot’s data goes into the same network and, currently, Home Depot has no documented method to restrict what the data is used for once local law enforcement agencies have it.
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As a result of those concerns, Zevin and other shareholder groups are trying to have an audit performed to ensure the data is not being used in ways contrary to how the Home Depot says is happening.
Home Depot said its board of directors was against the shareholder vote on an audit and was recommending its shareholders vote against the move.
In a statement shared with Channel 2 Action News, a Home Depot spokesperson said the company has “robust internal governance of third-party risk management and plans to supplement existing disclosure related to our cybersecurity, privacy and data governance efforts.”
Zevin said it was concerned about investors’ ability to independently assess data privacy compliance and exposure as the data privacy landscape across the United States changes.
“Evolving state privacy laws in California, Illinois, Virginia and Washington, create growing legal risk for companies whose vendor relationships enable data flows that violate those laws, even indirectly,” a Zevin statement in support of the audit says.
Citing research by the University of Washington, Zevin said there are three ways that federal immigration agents have accessed Flock data without a contract, and alleged that more than 4,000 immigration-related lookups were performed through them.
Zevin said the individual uses were identified when researchers examined Flock data lookups through use of various search terms. Searching terms like “ICE” led to the discovery of the lookups, according to Zevin.
Among the thousands of instances Zevin examined, more than a dozen were in Atlanta.
“APD publicly denied cooperating with ICE,” Zevin’s statement said. “Audit logs documented at least 15 Flock searches conducted on ICE’s behalf.”
Channel 2 Action News previously spoke to the Atlanta Police Department about allegations regarding Flock data and ICE, and was told at the time that the department was not sharing Flock data with the federal government.
Home Depot said more directly in a statement that “We do not authorize any law enforcement agency other than local and state law enforcement agencies to access the company’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) data.”
The company’s next proxy meeting will be on May 21, according to its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
In the most recent proxy filing, Home Depot also said "In the Company’s next Living Our Values Report, we plan to supplement the disclosure regarding our cybersecurity, privacy and data governance efforts, including our TPRM program, to provide additional information regarding these important oversight frameworks and the criteria considered by the Company when evaluating use of third-party vendors."
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