Date saved: 2026-10-25 18:01 (PDT)
Sources: Washington Post, ABC News, ACLU, Institute for Justice, CalMatters, The Guardian, Atlanta News First, CBS News, CNN
Key findings
Stalking and personal abuse by officers
- Washington Post (August 2, 2026): At least 50 law enforcement officers have been accused, charged, or convicted of using Flock's system and other license plate readers to spy on unsuspecting people -- in many cases stalking girlfriends or former partners -- with the Post confirming more than a dozen additional cases after publication. (Source)
- ABC News (August 14, 2026): Officer Assad Zahir in Shively, Kentucky, used Flock cameras to track the mother of his child 2,048 times, with 241 searches occurring after she had filed a personal protection order against him; he was charged with five counts of official misconduct and five counts of unlawful computer access. (Source)
- Atlanta News First (September 30, 2026): Zachary Anthony Klein, an 11-year Lufkin, Texas police veteran, was convicted of running more than 25,000 illegal searches using Flock cameras and other police databases to track an ex-girlfriend, her family, and people she dated; he received five years in prison. (Source)
- Institute for Justice (September 2026): Indianapolis officers Cassandra Crawley, Michael Rogers, and Jonathan Schultz each face multiple criminal charges for allegedly using Flock cameras to monitor women they were interested in, including dating partners, ex-wives, and a firefighter Rogers suspected his wife was having an affair with. (Source)
- The Guardian (September 13, 2026): An unnamed San Jose police officer was fired after allegedly using the Flock system to track a domestic violence victim on behalf of her abuser; no criminal charges were filed. (Source)
- WJCL Savannah (August 2026): Six Savannah police department employees -- four sworn officers and two civilians -- were fired after a proactive audit found them performing searches on personal acquaintances and family members; one officer had handed an outside agency a login they were not supposed to have. (Source)
Company response and civil liberties critique
- Flock Safety Blog (August 13, 2026): CEO Garrett Langley announced a new default seven-day data retention period down from 30 days, mandatory audit-assistance detection for all customers by year end, and offense-based sharing filters allowing cities to block certain search types from other agencies -- but existing customers keep their current retention periods. (Source)
- ACLU (August 13, 2026): The ACLU responded that Flock's changes fall short, noting the company has tried and failed to implement search-reason restrictions before -- police circumvented them by entering "investigation" or "hehehe" as the purpose -- and that Flock is still asking thousands of police departments to police themselves despite evidence this approach is unsafe. (Source)
- CalMatters (September 20, 2026): California lawmakers failed to enact Flock camera regulations for the fifth consecutive year, even as police in Los Angeles, Redwood City, El Cerrito, and Campbell ended their contracts with Flock Safety in recent weeks; roughly 70 documented instances nationwide exist of officers misusing ALPRs to track wives, stalk former partners, or pursue love interests. (Source)
- MSN / Simpsonville Council (October 25, 2026): The Simpsonville city council is set to discuss ending its ALPR camera contracts, joining a growing list of municipalities reconsidering Flock relationships. (Source)
- ABC News / New Bedford (October 23, 2026): Two New Bedford police officers were fired over Flock camera misuse, adding to the widening roster of departments taking personnel action. (Source)
Institute for Justice abuse database and wrongful stops
- Institute for Justice (2026): The IJ launched a public database documenting more than 100 incidents of ALPR abuse nationwide, including stalking, wrongful stops and detentions, and non-law-enforcement use; cases include a Toledo, Ohio driver detained at gunpoint after a Flock camera misread a "7" as a "2," and a York County, South Carolina motorist detained at gunpoint after a misread character flagged his car as stolen. (Source)
- Electronic Frontier Foundation (November 2025): An EFF investigation found that police agencies across the country logged hundreds of searches related to political protests between December 2024 and October 2025, using Flock's ALPR network to surveil protesters and activists. (Source)
Flock Safety's August announcement of new privacy safeguards -- seven-day default data retention, offense-based sharing filters, and mandatory audit detection -- landed like a company scrambling to contain a slowly exploding scandal, not an industry leader setting a new standard. The timing tells the real story: at least 50 law enforcement officers have now been accused, charged, or convicted of using Flock's network and other license plate readers to stalk ex-partners, with the Washington Post confirming more than a dozen additional cases even after its investigation published. The company's own audit tool flagged officer Assad Zahir in Kentucky after he queried the mother of his child 2,048 times -- 241 of those searches came after she had a personal protection order against him. Flock's systems work. The problem is who gets to use them and what happens when they don't.
The deeper structural issue is that Flock has blanketed roughly 120,000 locations nationwide with cameras that photograph every vehicle, log detailed location data, and share it across a nationwide network of police departments -- all without a warrant requirement. The ACLU's response to the company's August changes was blunt: Flock has tried and failed to implement search-reason restrictions before, and police circumvented them by entering "investigation" or even "hehehe" as the search purpose. The company's new mandatory case-code requirement is the same idea made compulsory, and the ACLU is not holding its breath. California lawmakers have now failed to pass Flock regulation for five consecutive years, even as cities from Los Angeles to Redwood City have cancelled their contracts. The throughline is clear: a company backed by nearly $1 billion in venture capital is building the country's de facto national vehicle tracking database, and the governance systems meant to constrain it -- internal audits, voluntary search-reason fields, local council oversight -- have all proven leaky or absent. What to watch next: the Institute for Justice's ALPR abuse database, which already catalogs more than 100 incidents, will be the best public record of whether the new mandatory audit tool actually produces discipline or just more flagged names that never result in charges.
Source links
- Washington Post: How police officers used a vast network of cameras to spy on their exes
- ACLU: Despite 'New' Updates, Flock's Creepy Cameras Remain Major Civil Liberties Threat
- Institute for Justice: The IJ Database of ALPR Abuse
- CalMatters: California kills bill regulating Flock cameras even as public rage grows
- ABC News: Flock announces security changes after dozens of reports of law enforcement abuse
- Atlanta News First: Flock worker calls police on reporter during camera installation | Behind the Investigation
- The Damage Report: Flock Camera Company SCRAMBLES With New Safety Features After Mass Backlash Erupts
- The Logical Leftist: They Built the Stalker Database -- Then Cops Got ARRESTED For Using It To Stalk Their Exes
- Lincoln Square: Flock Cameras Were Sold as Safety. Then Came the Stalking. | Max Burns & Insha Rahman Vera Institute