Albany police chief says FLOCK audit system exposed 5 officers who allegedly misused license plat...

Our Take

Credit to WALB News 10 for getting the police chief on record admitting what we've said all along: give officers a nationwide plate-lookup tool with weak guardrails, and some of them will use it to snoop on people who never committed a traffic violation, let alone a crime. The "audit system caught it" framing is being sold as a win for accountability. Sure, better than nothing. But the headline should really be that five cops in one mid-size Georgia department allegedly ran illegal searches before anyone noticed. That's not a bug getting patched, that's the predictable output of a surveillance network built first and governed second.

Flock's whole pitch to city councils is "trust us, it's audited." Albany just proved the audit only works after the damage is done — after someone's ex, neighbor, or rival already got looked up without cause. Departments love to tout firings and charges as proof the system polices itself, but every one of these stories starts because the technology existed to be abused in the first place. No camera, no misuse.

If your town has quietly bolted Flock cameras onto its streets, don't wait for a scandal to ask who's watching the watchers. Check our camera map to see what's already been installed near you, then push your local officials for real oversight before you become a search result in someone else's "unauthorized lookup." Head to take action for tools to make that happen.