Home Depot investor group requests review of data-sharing with law enforcement

A faction of Home Depot investors led by Zevin Asset Management, which owns over $7 million in company stock, is requesting the home improvement retailer “review its partnership with surveillance firm Flock Safety and state how its data is used and shared with law enforcement,” according to a recent Reuters report. The shareholder proposal has 17 co-filers.

The call for an inquiry follows independent media reports about Home Depot’s data-sharing practices, as well as increased scrutiny of the retailer amid Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests.

The home improvement chain has become a flash point amid the Trump administration’s increasingly violent deployment of ICE, given the retailer’s reputation as a gathering place for day laborers.

“Construction companies, contractors, private homeowners—they have historically gone to the Home Depot to buy their materials and then they come outside and hire a day laborer,” Alexis Teodoro, the worker rights director for the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center, a nonprofit focused on supporting immigrant workers, told CNN, following an ICE raid at Home Depot earlier this year. “This is common knowledge and is almost as American as apple pie now.”

In response to ICE raids at its stores, a Home Depot spokesperson said the company “cannot legally interfere with federal enforcement agencies, including preventing them from coming into our stores and parking lots,” according to Reuters.

The surveillance firm called out in the shareholder proposal, Flock Safety, is an automated license-plate camera reader that Home Depot deploys in its parking lots. The Home Depot spokesperson told Reuters that Home Depot “does not grant access to its license-plate readers to federal law enforcement.”

The Home Depot investor group behind the proposal requests an “assessment of privacy and civil rights risks, including discrimination or wrongful detention from misuse of customer data,” per Reuters, which reviewed the proposal.

“Such practices may expose the Company to financial and legal risks, including potential data breaches and enforcement of evolving state privacy laws,” the shareholders wrote, per Reuters. “The Company already faces reputational risks stemming from frequent immigration enforcement raids occurring near its stores and heightened public concerns regarding data privacy.”

In a September 8 letter to Home Depot leadership, Zevin Asset Management, a sustainability-focused investor, asked Home Depot to disclose its “policies to protect workforce continuity, safety, and morale at its stores,” and “steps the company is taking to ensure its operations and technology partnerships align with widely accepted human rights and privacy standards.”

Home Depot’s next shareholder meeting will likely occur in May.