Flock Safety adds new safeguards after camera misuse reports

Our Take

ABC10's report confirms what we've been saying: Flock Safety only tightens the screws on misuse after getting caught, not before. Officers using the network to stalk exes, run plates for personal favors, or snoop outside any legitimate investigation isn't a bug in the system — it's the predictable result of handing thousands of agencies access to a searchable, nationwide movement history with minimal real-time oversight. A new audit dashboard or usage-flagging tool is a PR patch, not structural reform.

The core problem isn't which employee misused the data last month — it's that this much data exists in the first place, sitting in a private company's servers, shareable across state lines with zero input from the people being tracked. 'Safeguards' announced after the fact don't undo the searches already run, the patterns already logged, or the chilling effect on anyone who now knows their plate reads are one bored cop away from being someone's personal lookup tool.

Credit to ABC10 for pushing this story into the open — that kind of local reporting is exactly how misuse gets surfaced at all, since Flock isn't volunteering it. If you want to know whether these cameras are already watching your commute, check our map, and if your city hasn't had this conversation yet, here's how to force it.