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Just a few days ago, we published a story about the companies who maintain automatic license plate readers selling the data they collect, and how that surveillance-for-profit is going to expand to allow readers to track your electronic signatures too—from your phone to your wearable gadgets and even the infotainment hardware in your car. No plate? No problem, thanks to a product called SignalTrace. The name certainly leaves little to the imagination.
To make matters worse, 404 media released two additional reports detailing police abuses of an existing, widely popular camera system called Flock. Maybe you’ve heard of it; the company has contracts with state and local governments all over the country to provide passive video monitoring of public spaces.
“Flock connects communities, businesses, and public safety so incidents can be understood clearly and decisions can be made on facts,” the company’s home page says.
It also says “Privacy first,” and has a somewhat prominent link to Flock’s data privacy policies. That seems friendly and transparent, right? Unfortunately, Flock’s track record on protecting that data (and even its raw camera feeds) is poor, to say the least. Last month, independent journalists discovered that Flock exposed both personal information and related search queries entered by police through multiple search engines.
Flock solar camera and modular security trailer. (Flock)
That leaked data was aggregated into a searchable database called HaveIBeenFlocked, where you can see for yourself whether your license plate has been run through Flock’s database—and in some cases, why.
That may matter more than one might think, because law enforcement isn’t using Flock exclusively to do its job. Multiple officers have been caught using Flock data to stalk both acquaintances and strangers. One Florida officer used Flock’s license plate lookup (among other things) to stalk his ex-girlfriend and her family over the course of several months in 2024; another in Missouri created 542 “test” searches over the course of 10 months to monitor the whereabouts of both his wife’s car and a mysterious second vehicle.
A group called “Deflock Joplin” put that timeline together using HaveIBeenFlocked; when the pattern was reported to the Joplin PD, the allegations were duly investigated:
“In December of 2025, the Joplin Police Department became aware of a possible policy violation by one of its personnel regarding the improper use of a departmental resource, specifically, the Flock license plate reader (LPR) system,” Joplin PD said in its statement. “An internal investigation was immediately initiated by the Joplin Police Department’s Office of Internal Affairs. The officer under investigation was promptly placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of our internal investigation.”
Don’t worry; it wasn’t a mere paid vacation, though the exact circumstances of his departure weren’t specified, the officer “is no longer employed by the City of Joplin.”
Flock told 404 Media in June that it was aware of 15 incidents of police abuse of its database—then went on to take credit for outing the abusers.
An automated license plate reader is seen mounted on a pole on June 13, 2024 in San Francisco, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
“There are also 140,000 monthly active users of Flock, so the relatively rare instances of abuse, while obviously wrong and awful, are exactly that—rare,” a Flock spokesperson told the outlet.
“Humans are fallible; unlike most tools society provide law enforcement, Flock ensures that in the instances when our technology is misused, the evidence used to hold responsible parties accountable, is right there in our system,” the spokesperson said. “We also encourage all our customers to have a usage policy, regular training, and to implement our Audit Assistance tool, which proactively flags unintended use.”
In other words, Flock provides the tools necessary for proper oversight of its system. Whether departments bother to maintain those tools, monitor their reports or act on any of the resulting information is entirely outside of the company’s hands.
What’s Flock going to do? “Fire” a good customer for not using the product to the fullest extent possible? Imagine that version of capitalism; pickup trucks would be as rare as honest politicians.
No matter where you live in the United States, there’s a decent chance Flock (or something like it) is either in use or being trialed somewhere near you. In the modern Internet of Things, you no longer need a license plate to be tracked, nor do you need to be in a car to be targeted.
Welcome to the future.
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Byron is an editor at The Drive with a keen eye for infrastructure, sales and regulatory stories.
