Police Officers Exposed For Using Surveillance Tech To Stalk Citizens

Our Take

Mirror7 News is reporting on something we warn about constantly: the database doesn't care who's logging in. Give cops a tool that can pull up anyone's travel history in seconds, and some of them will use it on an ex, a crush, or a rival rather than a suspect. This isn't a hypothetical 'bad apple' scenario — it's a predictable outcome of building searchable, location-tracking infrastructure and handing out the keys to thousands of officers with minimal oversight.

Flock Safety and similar vendors love to pitch ALPR networks as crime-fighting tools, but audit logs across the country keep turning up the same story: officers running plates for personal reasons, checking on partners, ex-partners, neighbors, or people they just took an interest in. When it finally surfaces, it's usually because someone got caught, not because the system was designed to catch misuse in the first place. Credit to Mirror7 News for putting a name and a face on what too often stays buried in internal affairs paperwork.

Every one of these cases is a reminder that 'if you've got nothing to hide' doesn't hold up when the people with access to the cameras are the ones doing the stalking. Check our camera map to see what's watching your own neighborhood, and head to take-action if you want to push your local council for real audit requirements before the next scandal breaks.