5 current, former IMPD officers charged for alleged misuse of Flock license plate reader technology

Our Take

Every time Flock Safety or a police chief insists these camera networks are tightly controlled and only used for 'serious crimes,' remember Indianapolis. WTHR reports that five current and former IMPD officers have been criminally charged for allegedly misusing the department's Flock ALPR system — turning a tool sold to the public as a neutral crime-fighting aid into something allegedly used for personal or improper ends. That's not a hypothetical slippery slope. That's the system working exactly as designed, just pointed at the wrong target.

This is the core problem with mass ALPR surveillance: the technology doesn't just watch suspects, it watches everyone, and it hands enormous unsupervised lookup power to whoever has a login. Audit logs and 'policy' only matter if someone is actually checking them and willing to prosecute when they're violated. Indianapolis deserves credit for at least bringing charges — most jurisdictions quietly handle this kind of abuse internally, if they even find out. The bigger question is how many departments running these same networks aren't catching it.

If your town has Flock cameras, you should already be asking who can query them, how often, and for what. Check our camera map to see what's been documented near you, and use our take-action guide to push your city council for real audit transparency before the next scandal breaks.