Cop Accused of Stalking Ex Using Flock Cameras #Shorts
The short version: A New Bedford officer allegedly used Flock ALPR access to track an ex-girlfriend, underscoring how easily these databases invite insider abuse.
Our Take
Credit to PositivelyNegative for surfacing this one: a New Bedford police officer is accused of using Flock Safety license plate readers to track an ex-girlfriend's movements, now under internal investigation. This is exactly the scenario privacy advocates have warned about since day one — give law enforcement a searchable, always-on log of everyone's comings and goings, and sooner or later someone with a badge will use it for something other than solving crimes.
Flock and its police customers love to tout 'audit logs' as the safeguard against this kind of misuse. But an audit log only works if someone is actually reviewing it, if violations carry real consequences, and if the public ever finds out when they don't. Most of the time, these systems run on trust — trust that every officer with access has pure intentions every single time they type in a plate. History, including this case, says that trust is misplaced.
Stalking enabled by police tech isn't a hypothetical edge case; it's a recurring pattern wherever mass surveillance infrastructure meets human behavior. Check our camera map to see if Flock readers are watching your neighborhood, and visit take-action to learn how to push back on unchecked ALPR deployment where you live.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of PositivelyNegative, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.