Police misused Flock Safety cameras. Now Flock is using AI to catch it.
The short version: The AJC documents Georgia's Flock misuse scandals, and Flock's response is to sell departments an AI tool that audits the very system it profits from.
Our Take
Credit to the AJC for tracking a pattern that keeps repeating across Georgia: officers running plates for personal reasons, curiosity, or favors that have nothing to do with an actual investigation. That's not a bug in the ALPR system, it's the predictable result of handing thousands of officers unrestricted access to a nationwide vehicle-tracking network with minimal real-time oversight. The headlines the AJC cites are just the misuse that happened to surface.
Flock's answer is an AI "Audit Assistance Tool" to flag unusual searches after the fact. Notice what that actually is: the company that built the surveillance dragnet is now selling police departments a product to police the dragnet. It's an admission that abuse is common enough to need automated detection, and it puts Flock in the position of grading its own homework, deciding what counts as "unusual" activity for a system it profits from expanding. Mandatory audit software doesn't change who has access to your location history, it just promises to notice sometimes when that access gets abused, after the search already happened.
Accountability bolted on after the fact is not the same as consent, transparency, or a network that shouldn't exist in the first place. If you want to see how far this has already spread in your area, check our camera map, and if you want to push back on your local department's Flock contract, our take-action guide walks through how.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Atlanta Journal-Constitution, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.