Flock Cameras Used to Stalk Exes?! The Surveillance Scandal Raising Serious Questions #FlockCameras

Our Take

Creator JB Quinnon is digging into something we've been warning about since day one: the people with access to Flock's license plate reader network aren't just chasing stolen cars and Amber Alerts. They're human, and humans with a badge and a database full of other people's movements have, time and again, used that access to track down ex-partners, romantic interests, and people who just annoyed them. This isn't a hypothetical — it's a documented pattern across departments that adopt ALPR systems, and it's exactly the kind of story that gets buried in a press release about "officer-involved misuse" instead of getting the scrutiny it deserves.

The core problem isn't one bad cop. It's architecture. Flock's pitch to cities is that the system is auditable and access is logged, but logs only matter if someone is actually reviewing them, and most agencies have no meaningful, public process for catching abuse before it ruins someone's life. A search log is cold comfort to a stalking victim after the fact. When a surveillance tool makes it trivial to pull a stranger's — or an ex's — travel history with a few keystrokes, the only real safeguard is whether anyone's watching the watchers, and right now almost nobody is.

We appreciate Quinnon putting a spotlight on this, because stories like this are how communities start asking the right questions before a camera goes up on their street, not after someone's been stalked by someone with network access. If you want to see whether Flock or similar ALPR systems are already watching your neighborhood, check our camera map, and if you want to push back on deployment or demand real audit transparency where you live, our take-action page has concrete next steps.