Police Misuse Flock Cameras to Stalk ‘Romantic Interests’
The short version: Steve Lehto highlights an Institute for Justice review finding officers misused Flock cameras at least 14 times to track romantic interests, proving the surveillance-abuse risk is real, not hypothetical.
Our Take
Steve Lehto is doing what too few outlets bother to do: reading the actual audit findings instead of taking Flock Safety's press releases at face value. The Institute for Justice numbers he cites — 14 documented instances of cops running plates to stalk someone they were personally interested in — aren't an edge case. They're the predictable outcome of handing a nationwide, warrantless tracking network to thousands of agencies with basically no independent oversight of who searches what, or why.
Flock's whole pitch rests on the promise that audit logs will catch misuse after the fact. But 'after the fact' means the damage is already done — someone's home address, daily routine, and movements have already been pulled up by an officer with a badge and a grudge, not a warrant. Fourteen known cases is almost certainly a floor, not a ceiling, since it depends entirely on someone noticing and reporting the abuse in the first place. Departments that don't audit, or don't punish what they find, will never show up in a count like this.
This is exactly the pattern we've been tracking: mission creep from 'find stolen cars' to 'look up my ex.' If you want to see how dense this network already is in your area, check our camera map, and if your city is considering a Flock contract, use our take-action resources to push for real audit transparency before the cameras go up, not after someone gets hurt.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Steve Lehto, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.