IMPD officer accused of using Flock cameras to stalk women makes initial court appearance

Our Take

WRTV Indianapolis is reporting on the initial court appearance of former IMPD officer Jason Schultz, who's accused of using automated license plate reader data to track and stalk women. This is precisely the nightmare scenario privacy advocates have been warning about since Flock cameras started multiplying on street corners nationwide: a surveillance network built on the promise of catching car thieves and hit-and-run drivers, repurposed by someone with a badge and a grudge.

Flock and its police partners love to tout audit logs and 'reason for search' fields as safeguards. But an audit trail only catches misuse after the fact — it does nothing to stop an officer from typing in a plate number to find out where an ex-partner or random woman lives, works, or parks. The system trusts the person behind the keyboard, and this case is a reminder that trust is not a security model. Every agency that deploys these cameras is handing enormous power to individual officers, with little more than an honor system standing between routine policing and stalking.

Credit to WRTV for staying on this story. If you want to see how dense this surveillance grid has gotten in your own neighborhood, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for the next officer to get caught, visit take action to push your local council for real oversight before the cameras go up, not after someone gets hurt.