As license plate camera networks expand, oversight struggles to keep pace

Our Take

Thirty thousand queries. That number alone should stop you cold, but what's more telling is how KMOV got it: a public records request, not a routine audit or a city council briefing. St. Peters PD isn't hiding the number, they're just not required to explain it, and that's the whole problem in one headline. When a department can rack up tens of thousands of lookups in a matter of weeks and the public only finds out because a reporter asked, you don't have oversight, you have a paper trail that nobody's reading.

Flock and its police customers love to point to the audit log as the safeguard. But a log is not a policy, and access to a log is not accountability. Who reviews those 30,000 queries for pattern, for abuse, for searches that have nothing to do with a warrant or an active case? In most cities, the honest answer is no one, until a lawsuit or a journalist forces the issue. That's not a system keeping pace with the technology, that's a system that's already behind and showing no urgency to catch up.

Every one of those queries ran against plates swept up by cameras most residents never voted on and can't see. If St. Peters has this many readers logging this much traffic, there's a good chance your town does too. Check our camera map to see what's watching near you, and if you want to push your council for real audit requirements instead of just a bigger log file, our take-action page has the tools to start.