Coweta Sheriff employees resign over Flock audit | FOX 5 News

Our Take

Credit to FOX 5 Atlanta for digging into this one, because it's the clearest proof yet of what we've been saying all along: these camera networks run almost entirely on trust, and trust is a terrible substitute for actual oversight. An internal audit — not a public records request, not a watchdog, not a journalist — is what caught this. That tells you the department had to go looking for a problem before it found one, which raises the obvious question of how many agencies aren't looking.

Flock Safety markets its system as audit-friendly, pointing to searchable logs that supposedly keep everyone honest. But a log only matters if someone with authority actually reviews it, and even then it's a rearview mirror — it tells you misuse happened after the fact, not before someone's plate, their routine, or their home address got pulled up for no legitimate reason. Resignations are a consequence, sure, but they don't undo the privacy violation or tell the public who was searched, why, or whether any of that data got passed along to someone who shouldn't have had it.

This is exactly the kind of local accountability story we track closely, because it's rarely the marketing pitch that reveals how these systems actually get used — it's the leaks, the audits, and the resignations. If there's a Flock network anywhere near you, check our camera map to see what's already watching your county, and hit take action if you want to push your local government for the same kind of transparency Coweta County only got after the damage was done.