Kentucky police officer arrested after using Flock cameras to track ex-girlfriend over 2,000 times

Our Take

Credit to FOX Nashville (WZTV) for breaking this one: a Kentucky police officer, Asad Zahir, was arrested and suspended without pay after allegedly querying Flock Safety's license plate reader network more than 2,000 times to track his ex-girlfriend. Two thousand. That's not a lapse in judgment, that's a pattern — and it's exactly the nightmare scenario critics of this technology have been warning about since these cameras started going up on street corners nationwide.

Flock and police departments love to tell the public that access is restricted, logged, and audited, that only 'trained personnel' can run plates, and that misuse gets caught. But audits only work if someone's actually looking, and this case suggests nobody was watching for thousands of queries tied to one plate. If a badge is all it takes to turn a public safety tool into a personal stalking app, the 'trust us' model of oversight is broken. The victims of this kind of abuse aren't suspects or wanted criminals — they're exes, neighbors, ordinary people who had no idea a government camera network was logging their every move across town.

This is why we keep pushing people to find out what's actually watching them. Check our camera map to see what's been documented near you, and if your town is considering a Flock contract — or already has one with zero public reporting — head to our take-action page to push for real audit requirements before the next officer decides the system is his own personal tracker.