Police Caught Using License Plate Readers to Stalk Lovers
The short version: Dr. Rashad Richey's segment spotlights police allegedly misusing license plate readers to track romantic interests, exposing the system's built-in potential for abuse.
Our Take
Credit to Sharon Reed, Jackson White, and Dr. Rashad Richey's Indisputable for surfacing another case where the badge becomes the backdoor. Every time law enforcement insists ALPR networks are strictly for catching stolen cars or Amber Alerts, a story like this surfaces showing an officer running plates on an ex, a crush, or a rival for purely personal reasons. The tech doesn't know the difference between a legitimate investigation and a jealous boyfriend with a badge and database access.
This isn't a one-off glitch — it's the predictable outcome of building mass surveillance infrastructure with minimal oversight. Flock Safety and similar vendors market these camera networks as community safety tools, but the audit trails, access controls, and consequences for misuse are often an afterthought, left to individual departments to police themselves. When the people holding the keys can quietly search anyone's movements on a whim, 'public safety' becomes a convenient cover for stalking, harassment, and abuse of power.
If you want to know how saturated your own neighborhood is with these cameras, check our camera map. And if you're ready to push back against unchecked plate-reader deployment in your city, our take-action resources show you where to start.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.