Flock Cut Officer Names From Audit Logs After Georgia Misuse Cases

Our Take

Credit to Verified Privacy VPN (vp.net) for connecting the dots on this one. The timeline is damning: reporters and researchers used Flock's own audit logs to catch cops running plates for personal reasons — stalking exes, checking up on family members, the usual list of abuses the Institute for Justice has been tracking nationwide. Then, right after Atlanta News First Investigates published its findings and three more officers got fired in Fayetteville, Flock quietly pulled officer names out of the very logs that made those stories possible.

This is the pattern with every one of these vendor-built "accountability" tools: they work exactly once, in public, against the company's interest, and then the feature that made accountability possible gets rewritten. Flock has spent years telling city councils and skeptical residents that audit logs are the safeguard — the thing that proves the network isn't being abused. Strip out who ran which plate and you haven't fixed misuse, you've just made it invisible to the next reporter or watchdog trying to prove it.

None of this is hypothetical for the departments running these systems in your town. If you want to know whether Flock cameras are on your streets, check our map, and if your city is debating a contract or renewal, our take-action page has what you need to push for real, tamper-resistant audit requirements before the vendor decides transparency was optional all along.