Officer allegedly used Flock cameras to stalk ex

Our Take

Simply Budd's video lays out allegations that should make every city council member pause before signing another Flock Safety contract: a sworn officer reportedly used ALPR network access to track an ex. This isn't a hypothetical civil-liberties thought experiment — it's the exact scenario privacy advocates have been warning about since these cameras started multiplying on street corners nationwide. When you build a system that logs every car's movements and hand the keys to hundreds of local agencies, you're trusting that every single person with login credentials will never have a bad day, a grudge, or an obsession.

Flock and police departments love to tout audit logs and 'search justification' fields as proof the system polices itself. But an audit log only catches misuse after the fact, assuming anyone's bothered to check it, and departments have shown little appetite for public accountability when their own are implicated. Credit to Simply Budd for pushing this story into the open — these cases rarely get coverage, and without outside pressure they tend to quietly disappear into internal affairs purgatory.

This is precisely why we track camera deployments and push for sunset clauses, independent audits, and real consequences for misuse. If you want to see how many of these cameras are watching your own neighborhood, check our map, and if you're ready to push back on unchecked surveillance in your city, our take-action resources are a good place to start.