Cop Stalks Woman He Met on a TV Set After Surveilling Her With a License Plate Reader
The short version: 404 Media's reporting shows a Florida cop used ALPR access to track and stalk a woman he met socially, nearly causing a crash to pull her over.
Our Take
This is the nightmare scenario every ALPR skeptic warns about, documented in plain video evidence by 404 Media. A badge and database access turned a chance meeting into weeks of surveillance, and that surveillance turned into a road chase that endangered everyone nearby. The pitch for these camera networks is always public safety. The reality, once again, is that the same tool is a ready-made stalking device for anyone with a login and bad intentions.
Flock and its competitors like to talk about audit logs and "misuse policies" as if paperwork prevents abuse. It doesn't. It just creates a record after the fact, assuming anyone bothers to check it, assuming the department is willing to act on what it finds, and assuming the target ever learns her plate was pulled in the first place. Departments routinely resist releasing audit data, and officers who misuse these systems are disciplined inconsistently, if at all. The infrastructure does the surveilling; the "safeguards" are an afterthought bolted on for PR.
Credit to 404 Media for digging up the footage and forcing this into the open, because these cases almost never surface on their own. If you want to know whether a reader-tracking camera is watching your street right now, check our map, and if you're ready to push back on this surveillance creeping into your town, our take-action guide is a good place to start.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of 404 Media, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.