Flock hit jailed a man five miles from the crime
The short version: A San Diego man was jailed after a Flock plate-reader hit placed his car near a crime scene it was never near, until timestamps proved the algorithm wrong.
Our Take
Verified Privacy VPN's short breaks down a case that should worry anyone who thinks ALPR "hits" are just harmless data points: a San Diego man landed in jail because a Flock camera flagged his plate as matching a vehicle tied to a crime. According to his attorney, the timestamps show his car was five miles away when the crime occurred. That's not a rounding error, that's a system generating probable cause out of thin air.
This is exactly the failure mode we keep warning about. Flock's pitch to police departments is speed and convenience, an instant lead instead of legwork. But when a camera hit becomes the basis for an arrest without officers doing the basic work of checking time and location, the technology stops being a tool and starts being the decision-maker. The people who pay for that shortcut are the ones sitting in a cell while their lawyer has to do the department's homework for them.
Credit to Verified Privacy VPN for surfacing this and for using it to kick off the National Week of Action Against ALPRs. Cases like this are why we track where these cameras are deployed on our map and why we push people toward concrete steps on take-action, because a badge and a database match shouldn't be enough to take someone's freedom.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Verified Privacy VPN (vp.net), published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.