Cops all over the country are using new Flock license plate reader cameras to stalk women

Our Take

Credit to KAWPS The Podcast for putting a spotlight on something we keep hearing whispered about in departments across the country: officers with access to Flock's ALPR network using it to track women — exes, coworkers, love interests — instead of solving crimes. This isn't a hypothetical risk. Every camera Flock installs feeds a searchable log of where a car has been, and that log is only as trustworthy as the person with login credentials. When the audit trail is thin or the department doesn't bother checking, misuse becomes a feature, not a bug.

Flock and its police partners love to talk about 'reasonable suspicion' and 'audit logs,' but those are policies, not hardware limits. Nothing about the camera stops an officer from typing in a plate because he's curious where his ex went last night. The technology doesn't know the difference between a stolen-car alert and a jealous ex. That's the core problem with blanket, always-on plate surveillance: it puts a powerful tracking tool in the hands of thousands of people, and trusts all of them to never abuse it.

Stories like this are exactly why we built our tracker of Flock and ALPR deployments nationwide — because knowing where these cameras exist is the first step to demanding accountability for how they're used. If your city has flocked its streets with license plate readers, don't just take the department's word that it's 'only for serious crimes.' Check the map for cameras near you, and hit up our take-action page to push your local council for real oversight and audit transparency before the next misuse story breaks in your town.