Flock Safety Is Requiring Case Codes for Law Enforcement Searches

Our Take

Flock Safety's own video announces that starting later this year, cops will need to attach a "case code" to every ALPR search. On paper, that sounds like real accountability: no more open-ended fishing expeditions through a nationwide plate database without tying the query to an actual investigation. But notice who's setting the rules, grading the homework, and issuing the press release here — Flock itself. This is a vendor marking its own product's safety features, not an independent audit or a binding law.

The bigger tell is the "emergency bypass." Officers can still skip the case code requirement whenever they decide it's urgent, and those searches just get flagged for someone inside the department to review later. We've seen this movie before with other surveillance tools: the exception becomes the norm, and after-the-fact review rarely results in real consequences. A policy that can be waived by the same person using the tool isn't a safeguard, it's a suggestion.

None of this changes the core problem — thousands of Flock cameras are quietly logging the movements of everyday drivers who've done nothing wrong, feeding a searchable history that police, and sometimes outside agencies, can query. Case codes might make abuse slightly harder to hide, but they don't stop the mass collection in the first place. Check our map to see what's watching your streets, and visit take action if you want to push your local council for real oversight instead of vendor-authored PR.