Police Chief Used Flock Cameras to Stalk His Ex

Our Take

Dark Tech's report on Marci Bakely's year-long ordeal is the nightmare scenario privacy advocates have been warning about since Flock Safety cameras started multiplying on street corners: the system doesn't just watch strangers, it hands insiders a tool to watch anyone they want. A police chief with login credentials doesn't need a warrant, a court order, or even a plausible excuse — just curiosity, a grudge, or in this case, an obsession with an ex-partner's grocery runs and doctor visits.

This isn't a hypothetical 'what if someone misuses the data' argument anymore. It's a documented pattern. Flock markets these networks as crime-fighting infrastructure, but the audit logs that are supposed to catch abuse are only as good as the agencies willing to actually review them — and chiefs investigating themselves is not a system, it's a liability. Every camera added to a town's intersection is another node in a dataset that someone with a badge and a login can quietly query for personal reasons, with little chance of getting caught unless the victim happens to notice a pattern and fight for records.

Credit to Dark Tech for pushing this story into the open — it's the kind of accountability journalism that forces agencies to answer for systems they'd rather keep invisible. If you want to see how exposed your own neighborhood is, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back on unchecked ALPR deployment in your city, our take-action page has concrete steps.