Misuse and Abuse

 

Because Flock Safety operates an interconnected, nationwide network of automated license plate readers (ALPRs), documented cases of misuse span from individual officer misconduct to institutional surveillance overreach.

1. Interpersonal Stalking and Domestic Spying

The most common documented form of officer misconduct involves using the camera grid for unauthorized personal surveillance:

• Tracking Spouses and Romantic Partners: Dozens of officers nationwide have faced criminal charges, termination, or suspension for querying plates belonging to ex-spouses, dating partners, or estranged partners. In extreme instances—such as a 2026 Indiana case—a deputy queried his partner’s vehicle over 2,000 times within eight months.
• Pursuing Strangers: Officers have used Flock’s search interface to look up plates of women or strangers they encountered off-duty or while working private security details, using registration and location histories to locate or initiate unwanted contact.
• Evading Audit Oversight: In departments where queries require entering a reason, internal reviews show officers often bypass flags by entering generic placeholders—such as "training," "follow-up," or simply "investigation"—to mask personal queries.

2. Algorithmic Errors and Misidentifications

Optical character recognition (OCR) and automated plate reading are prone to technical misreads, leading to dangerous enforcement actions:

• High-Risk "Felony Stops" on Innocent Motorists: When an ALPR misreads a single character on a plate, misinterprets an out-of-state tag, or confuses an expired hit with a stolen vehicle alert, police frequently execute high-risk "guns-drawn" felony stops on innocent drivers.
• Failure to Visually Confirm: Police department audits have revealed alarming error rates; for example, an LAPD audit found that roughly one in three vehicles flagged as stolen by automated systems was inaccurately identified. This occurs when officers rely entirely on automated alerts without visually verifying the tag and state before initiating a stop.

3. Circumvention of State Privacy and Shield Laws

Because Flock connects thousands of agencies into a unified network, local protections are frequently undermined by unauthorized cross-border sharing:

• Violating Sanctuary and Data-Sharing Prohibitions: In states like California, where statutes (e.g., SB 34) strictly prohibit sharing ALPR data with out-of-state or federal entities, audits have repeatedly caught municipal police departments sharing local feeds with out-of-state agencies or federal immigration authorities.
• Investigating Protected Conduct: Civil liberties organizations have documented instances where out-of-state law enforcement leveraged national ALPR queries to track travel patterns related to legally protected out-of-state actions, such as seeking reproductive healthcare.

4. Surveillance of First Amendment Activity and Activism

ALPR systems allow law enforcement to monitor constitutional assemblies without individualized reasonable suspicion:

• Political Protests and Labor Actions: Agencies have used cameras placed near convention centers, government plazas, or event routes to catalog vehicles attending protests, civil rights marches, or union pickets.
• Chilling Free Association: By querying ALPR scans of vehicles parked near union halls, places of worship, or controversial political rallies, law enforcement can build rosters of attendees even when no crime has occurred.

5. Algorithmic Profiling and Group Dragnetting

Flock’s advanced analytics—such as vehicle fingerprinting (identifying bumper stickers, roof racks, and damage) and "Convoy" detection—enable demographic and group profiling:

• Convoy Tracking: The "Convoy" feature flags vehicles that routinely travel in tandem. While intended to uncover drug trafficking caravans, civil rights audits have exposed police departments using the tool to target marginalized groups, such as Romani traveling communities, without tying searches to specific reported crimes.
• Discriminatory Search Term Abuse: Public record audits of internal search logs have revealed officers entering racial slurs and demographic stereotypes directly into ALPR query boxes to locate vehicles associated with particular minority groups.

6. Commercial Aggregation and Private HOA Networks

Flock’s hybrid public-private sales model creates accountability gaps:

• Private-to-Police Handoffs: Thousands of Homeowners Associations (HOAs), apartment complexes, and private shopping malls purchase Flock cameras and voluntarily grant local police departments live access to their private feeds. This bypasses municipal oversight hearings, city council procurement votes, and public records disclosure laws that typically govern government surveillance acquisition.
• Privatized Neighborhood Gatekeeping: HOA boards and property managers with system access have used automated logs to police neighbor disputes, monitor guest visitors, track service contractors, or retaliate against residents.