Goodyear Police Dept. investigate whether officer misused Flock license plate reader system
The short version: ABC15's report on Goodyear PD's internal probe is the third Valley agency this week to investigate alleged Flock misuse, exposing the system's weak accountability.
Our Take
Credit to ABC15 Arizona for staying on this story, because the pattern matters more than any single incident. Three police agencies in the Phoenix area investigating potential Flock Safety misuse in the same week isn't a coincidence — it's a signal. These systems get sold to city councils as "just for solving crimes," but the moment you build a database that logs every car's movements, you've built a tool that can be abused by anyone with a login and a personal motive, whether that's stalking an ex, running plates for a friend, or settling a grudge.
What's notable is that we only know about these three cases because someone got caught, or because an audit flagged unusual search activity. Flock's own audit trail features are often cited as the safeguard, but an audit log only works if someone is actually reviewing it regularly and taking misuse seriously. Self-reporting by police departments is not the same as independent oversight, and "under investigation" rarely comes with a public accounting of what was found, who was affected, or what changed afterward.
This is exactly why we built our camera map — residents deserve to know where this surveillance infrastructure exists in their own communities, not just read about misuse after the fact in a news segment. If you want to push back on unchecked ALPR deployment where you live, our take-action resources are a good place to start.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of ABC15 Arizona, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.