Date saved: 2026-10-27 03:01 (PDT)
Sources: ABC News, Reuters, CNN, Washington Post, USA TODAY, Institute for Justice, City of New Bedford, StopFlockSafety, Jackson City Council, Shawn Ryan SRS Docuseries, InvestigateTV
Key findings
Officer misuse: stalking, personal queries, and criminal charges
- ABC News (October 2026): A police officer in Kentucky was arrested after authorities alleged he used Flock cameras to track his ex-girlfriend more than 2,000 times. In Savannah, Georgia, six police department employees were fired in August over alleged abuse of Flock cameras. The non-profit Institute for Justice has identified more than 100 incidents of ALPR abuse, among them stalking and wrongful stops. (Source)
- City of New Bedford (October 22, 2026): New Bedford fired Officer Emily Pacheco and Sgt. James Martinelli after internal investigations found they used Flock to track current or former romantic partners. Pacheco searched her former girlfriend's license plate more than 650 times and the plate of her former girlfriend's new partner more than 200 times. Marinelli searched his girlfriend's plate nearly 70 times. The City Council voted 8-3 to bar the city from operating license plate readers. (Source)
- FOX 5 Atlanta / Milton, Georgia (October 20, 2026): Milton terminated Detective Randy Dula after seven Flock searches of his wife's plate over two years. His wife and attorney say the searches occurred during feared diabetic emergencies; the city has not publicly endorsed that account. (Source)
- The Verge (October 18, 2026): Savannah Police fired Amber Harpe after an internal investigation found she shared Flock credentials with her ICE-agent husband, who conducted 983 searches using the unauthorized access. (Source)
- Washington Post (2026): At least 50 officers across the country have been charged with or accused of misuse related to stalking a partner, former partner, or a woman they were interested in. The Post confirmed more than a dozen additional cases after its initial investigation was published. (Source)
- Jackson, Mississippi (October 14, 2026): Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney announced the department will not renew its contract with Flock Safety, citing privacy concerns. Brackney told the city council that more than 50 officers nationwide have been charged for policy violations involving Flock license plate readers. (Source)
Cities cancelling contracts and cameras being destroyed
- Reuters (October 2026): Madison County, Georgia dropped its Flock Safety cameras citing high costs. The Madison County Sheriff's Office announced it cut ties with Flock, saying the license plate reading system is simply not worth the financial cost. (Source)
- StopFlockSafety / Arvada, Colorado (2026): Arvada Police will not renew its contract with Flock Safety, becoming the latest department to end its relationship with the company. (Source)
- Granite Falls, Washington (October 23, 2026): A Flock camera was destroyed in Granite Falls amid growing local criticism, as several Washington cities moved to ban law enforcement use of the technology altogether. (Source)
Federal access and the surveillance network
- Shawn Ryan SRS Docuseries (2026): In Evanston, Illinois, the city ordered its Flock cameras removed entirely after discovering the system let U.S. Customs and Border Protection access local plate data, a direct violation of Illinois state privacy law. Flock quietly reinstalled the cameras anyway after the city had already told them to take them down. Federal immigration authorities, ICE, the Secret Service, and the Navy had been running searches through local Flock networks, sometimes without the knowledge or consent of the local police departments that own the cameras. (Source)
- USA TODAY (August 2026): More than 20 police agencies have launched investigations, suspended or fired officers or filed criminal charges for misusing Flock after reporting by USA TODAY. In Johnson County, Texas, a police officer tracked a woman across state lines after she got an abortion, running a nationwide search of more than 83,000 Flock cameras for a woman who'd had an abortion. (Source)
The structural scale of the network
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution / CNN (2026): Flock Safety has deployed more than 120,000 automated license plate reader cameras nationwide, completing billions of license plate scans each month while serving more than 7,000 law enforcement agencies. The company says its network helps police solve crimes faster, but critics argue the same systems raise questions about privacy, data sharing, transparency, and oversight. An attorney with the Institute for Justice, which has filed lawsuits against Flock on Fourth Amendment grounds, said the underlying problem is police can use the system without a warrant or clear reason. (Source)
Flock Safety has deployed more than 120,000 license-plate reader cameras across 49 states, selling to over 7,000 law enforcement agencies. The company markets its system as a tool to catch car thieves. What the company does not advertise is that the same system has become a nationwide stalking infrastructure. The week's reports from Fresno to New Bedford to Athens, Georgia tell one coherent story: officers are using Flock to track ex-partners, romantic interests, and personal acquaintances with no warrant, no judicial oversight, and no meaningful audit until someone gets caught. A Washington Post investigation this year documented at least 50 officers charged with or accused of misuse related to stalking a partner or woman they were interested in. The pattern is not anecdotal. It is structural. Flock gives every officer with a badge and a login the ability to query the movement history of anyone in their jurisdiction, and the audit features that caught the Fresno officer only exist because the department turned them on. Most departments have not.
The second throughline is federal access. Reporting this year documented that ICE, the Secret Service, and the Navy have been running searches through local Flock networks, sometimes without the knowledge of the police departments that own the cameras. Flock's position is that it does not contract directly with ICE, but the company has acknowledged that once a local department owns the data, Flock cannot override that department's decision to share it with a federal partner. The result is a de facto national surveillance network built from thousands of separate local contracts, accessible by federal immigration and law enforcement agencies through backdoors the local public never voted on. The Evanston, Illinois case is the clearest example: the city ordered its Flock cameras removed after discovering ICE had accessed local plate data, and Flock quietly reinstalled them anyway.
What to watch next: more than 50 cities and counties have canceled or deactivated Flock cameras this year alone. The legal question that will define the next phase is whether the Fourth Amendment applies to a database that aggregates billions of plate scans collected with no individualized suspicion, or whether courts will treat Flock the way they treated other dragnet surveillance technologies before them. Flock announced new guardrails in August (mandatory case numbers, abnormal-search review, a seven-day data retention default) but those are company policy, not law, and they do not address the core problem that the system exists at all.
Source links
- ABC News: Flock cameras trigger nationwide backlash over privacy concerns, police abuse
- ABC News: Flock announces security changes after dozens of reports of law enforcement abuse
- Reuters: Jackson police chief to end Flock cameras contract over privacy concerns
- CNN: Inside the growing police use and misuse of Flock's license-plate readers
- Clarion Ledger: Flock cameras are so controversial people are sabotaging them
- New Bedford Light: City won't renew Flock contract
- StopFlockSafety: Officer Abuse Articles
- Washington Post: Drew Harwell reporting on Flock
- YouTube: InvestigateTV - We investigated Flock cameras and how law enforcement uses them
- YouTube: Mak-Tube - Meet the Flockers: Police Misuse of Flock Cameras | Great Investigations Ep. 12