License plate readers under scrutiny as officers across the state accused of misusing them
The short version: 11Alive's investigation into Georgia officers allegedly running plate reader searches for personal reasons confirms what critics have warned all along: the tech is only as trustworthy as the person behind the keyboard.
Our Take
Credit to 11Alive for digging into something Flock Safety and its police partners would rather you not think about too hard: these cameras aren't just scanning for stolen cars and Amber Alerts, they're logging every plate that passes, and someone with a badge and a login can query that history for whatever reason they want. When officers are accused of running searches for personal reasons, that's not a bug in the system, it's the predictable result of building a nationwide surveillance database and then trusting an honor system to police who looks up who.
Flock and police departments love to tout audit logs as the safeguard here, but an audit trail only catches abuse after the fact, assuming anyone bothers to look. It does nothing to stop an officer from tracking an ex-partner, a neighbor, or a journalist in real time. Georgia isn't unique. Every department running these systems is one bored or vindictive employee away from its own version of this story, because the technology was built for scale and convenience, not for accountability.
If a camera like this is sitting on your street, you deserve to know it's there and who can pull your travel history on a whim. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your neighborhood, and visit our take-action page if you want to push back on unchecked ALPR deployment where you live.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of 11Alive, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.