Fox News - Georgia cops' alleged misuse of Flock license plate tracking data fuels privacy concerns

Our Take

Credit to Peter Tran for surfacing this Fox News report, because it confirms exactly what we've been warning about: Flock's entire pitch rests on the promise that access to its sprawling license plate database is tightly controlled and audited. Ten Georgia officers arrested for misusing that data says otherwise. These weren't hackers or outside bad actors — they were the trusted insiders the system was supposedly built to vet.

Flock and its police partners love to point to "audit trails" as the safeguard. But an audit trail only tells you who misused the data after the fact, usually after someone's ex, neighbor, or personal rival has already been tracked across a city's worth of cameras. Ten arrests in one state is not a sign the guardrails are working — it's a sign of how much abuse is happening that never gets caught, because most departments aren't auditing anywhere near this closely.

This is why it matters to know where these cameras actually are in your own community. Check our camera map to see what's been documented near you, and if you want to push back on unchecked ALPR deployment in your town, our take-action page has concrete steps for getting involved locally.