10+ officers arrested for misusing surveillance cameras. What tools are watching the watchers?

Our Take

Credit to WSB-TV for digging into something we've been saying for a while: the danger of ALPR networks isn't just hypothetical future abuse, it's happening right now, inside police departments. More than ten officers fired and charged in a single year for misusing this tech isn't a few bad apples, it's a pattern. When you build a system that lets any badge holder search a stranger's movements in seconds, some of those badge holders will use it to stalk an ex, help a friend, or settle a personal score. That's not a bug in the design, it's the design.

Flock and similar vendors love to tout audit logs and "policy" as the safeguard. But an audit log only catches misuse after the fact, after the damage to someone's safety or privacy is already done. Policies are paper. What actually works is not having a database of everyone's movements sitting around waiting to be queried in the first place. The officers caught this year got caught because someone noticed or complained. Nobody knows how many didn't get caught.

If you want to know whether this surveillance net has already been cast over your own neighborhood, check our camera map. And if you'd rather your city council hear from residents before more of these systems go in, start with our take-action page.