Privacy concerns mount amid police misconduct probes regarding use of Flock technology

Our Take

WGN News is reporting on something we've been saying for a while: give cops a database that tracks everyone's movements, and some of them will use it for reasons that have nothing to do with public safety. When investigations pop up in at least two Chicagoland departments over alleged Flock misuse, that's not a bug in the system working itself out — it's the predictable result of deploying mass surveillance with minimal guardrails and even less transparency.

Flock and its police customers love to talk about "audit logs" and "policy compliance" like that's a real check on power. But audits after the fact don't undo the damage of an officer looking up an ex's plate, tracking a journalist, or feeding data to someone who shouldn't have it. The whole selling point of these networks is that they quietly log where your car goes, day after day, without a warrant. Once that data exists, misuse isn't a hypothetical risk — it's a matter of when, not if, especially when oversight depends on the same agencies doing the watching.

Credit to WGN for pushing this story into the open, because most of these systems operate with zero public scrutiny until something breaks. If you want to see how many of these cameras are already watching your own neighborhood, check our map, and if you're ready to push back locally, our take-action page has concrete steps.