🚨 Every time a police department runs your plate, that search gets logged with a reason attached.

Our Take

Billy Coder is pointing at something we hammer on constantly: Flock and other ALPR systems don't just silently slurp up your plate and move on. Every single search gets logged, and in most jurisdictions that log is supposed to include a reason — a case number, a justification, something tying the search to actual police work. That's the theory, anyway. The reality, as plenty of public records requests have shown, is that "investigation" or a blank field shows up far more often than it should.

This matters because the audit log is the only real check most communities have on whether these cameras are being used the way departments promised when they sold the contract to city council. No warrant requirement, no judge signing off before a scan — just a database and an honor system that officers will type in a legitimate reason every time they query millions of plates. When those logs get pulled by journalists or watchdogs, we routinely see fishing expeditions, personal lookups, and searches with no case attached at all. The paper trail exists; the question is whether anyone's reading it.

If there's a Flock camera in your town, there's a log being built on you too. Check our camera map to see what's tracking your routes, and head to take action for templates to request your own department's audit logs and push for real oversight.