The Side Door: How Agencies Dodge ALPR Oversight

A new report from Footnote4a describes what it calls a “side door” in Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader network: more than three out of four agencies surveyed say they run searches on behalf of other departments at least once a month, and that these proxy queries routinely bypass the oversight and audit logging meant to keep the system accountable.

Why a “side door” even exists

Flock’s network is built around sharing. Agencies can grant other departments access to their camera feeds, and officers can also simply ask a neighboring or partner agency to run a plate search for them. That second option is the problem the report highlights. If Department A can’t or won’t run a search itself — because of its own policy, a state restriction, or a lack of direct access — it can ask Department B to do it instead. The search happens, but the record of who really wanted it, and why, can get lost in the handoff.

Why this matters to everyday people

ALPR systems are sold on the promise of accountability: every search is supposed to be logged, tied to a case number, and reviewable later if someone asks how their movements ended up in a database. Proxy searching undermines that promise. When a query is made “for” another agency, the audit trail can become vague or incomplete, making it much harder for the public, journalists, or even internal auditors to reconstruct who searched for a plate, when, and for what reason. That’s not a small technical gap — it’s the difference between a system with real oversight and one that just looks like it has oversight on paper.

What we don’t know yet

The report doesn’t spell out every detail of how these arrangements work agency by agency, and we won’t speculate beyond what’s been reported. What is clear is that a majority of surveyed agencies acknowledge the practice happens regularly, which suggests it isn’t an isolated loophole but a common workaround.

What you can do

Start by finding out whether your local police department uses Flock or a similar ALPR system — check our interactive map to see what’s already documented nearby. Learn the basics of how these networks share data at Learn, and if you want to push for real audit requirements — logged reasons, named requesting officers, and public reporting on cross-agency searches — see our Take Action page for steps you can bring to a city council or police oversight board near you.

Source: Footnote4a