Eastpointe stops using Flock cameras after abuse allegations

Our Take

Credit to WXYZ-TV Detroit | Channel 7 for breaking this one: Eastpointe's city council didn't just tighten a policy, they voted to shut off Flock cameras entirely after two police employees were accused of misusing the system. That's the nightmare scenario every privacy advocate has been warning about since these cameras started going up on street corners nationwide — not hackers, not foreign adversaries, but the people with the keys deciding to snoop for personal reasons.

Flock and its police partners love to sell these networks as narrowly targeted crime-fighting tools, but a database that logs every car's movements is only as trustworthy as the humans who can query it, and Eastpointe just showed what happens when that trust breaks down. Audit logs and 'policy' mean nothing if the people running the system treat it like a personal lookup tool. This isn't an isolated glitch — it's the predictable outcome of building mass surveillance infrastructure first and asking about safeguards later.

Eastpointe deserves credit for actually pulling the cameras instead of issuing a statement and moving on, and other councils facing similar abuse reports should be paying attention. If you want to see whether ALPRs are already tracking your street, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back where you live, our take-action page has the tools to get started.