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New York advocacy groups allege that state and local police searched Flock Safety automated license-plate-reader (ALPR) data for ICE and CBP-related purposes, sometimes logging the requests under generic investigative labels. Separately, reporting has identified dozens of U.S. officers accused, investigated, fired, or arrested for unauthorized ALPR searches, including alleged personal surveillance of romantic partners. The allegations have renewed calls for stricter audit reviews, access controls, retention limits, and restrictions on sharing vehicle-location data with immigration authorities.
Scrutiny also extends to the scale of Flock’s network and the wider ALPR market. Flock reportedly explored using Nexar dashcams in rideshare and delivery vehicles to expand law-enforcement-accessible plate collection, though the company said the partnership did not materialize. Flock has reduced default retention from 30 days to one week and added safeguards, but agencies may be able to change those settings. Municipalities are reconsidering deployments: Manchester, Vermont, tabled a decision on its five cameras amid privacy and AI false-positive concerns, while other cities have disabled systems and opposition has included alleged camera vandalism. Civil-liberties advocates warn that alternative providers, including Motorola Solutions/Vigilant and Axon, create comparable mass-surveillance risks.
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The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project and LatinoJustice PRLDEF published a report alleging that New York state and local police searched Flock data on behalf of federal immigration authorities, sometimes using generic investigation labels in logs.
Manchester's Selectboard discussed whether to retain its five Flock cameras but made no final decision. It agreed to revisit the matter after a police-station visit and consideration of less privacy-invasive alternatives.
Alpharetta patrolman Dustin Bozzo allegedly used Flock ALPR data between March and May to search a former romantic partner's plate 56 times and another officer's plate 29 times. The department placed him on paid leave on July 20; he resigned on August 5, and its Criminal Investigations Division opened an ongoing criminal investigation.
Secure Justice reported that 96 U.S. localities ended their relationships with Flock Safety in August 2026, up from 90 in an earlier tally and roughly four times the prior month's total. The terminations were attributed to concerns over surveillance scope, data sharing, costs, and alleged police misuse.
Police in at least two New York towns included "ICE" in Flock database searches, indicating that immigration-related searches continued into July.
New York enacted the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act as part of its 2026-27 budget. The law bars local law enforcement from formal or informal agreements to assist federal immigration enforcement.
A Cheektowaga Police Department officer searched the same plate twice, using the reasons "WANTED" and "Wanted by ICE."
A Lancaster police officer searched the same license plate again and recorded the purpose as "inv."
After a Border Patrol agent searched a license plate, a Lancaster, New York police officer searched the same plate later that day.
A New York State Fusion Center search listed the reason "SWB 25-03-01 DHS Agent." About an hour later, a New York State Police officer searched the same license plate and recorded the reason as "Investigation."
Axon announced fixed-camera ALPR products, including a smart-streetlight product, expanding its competition with Flock in the license-plate-reader market.
Manchester, Vermont began operating five Flock automated license plate reader cameras in 2023 at locations on Bonnet Street, Depot Street, and Main Street.
Axon began selling automated license plate reader services in 2021 through its Axon Fleet 3 in-vehicle camera product.
A YouGov survey of 20,000 U.S. respondents found that 46% opposed Flock Safety surveillance cameras in their communities and 38% supported them, reversing the prior year's majority support. More respondents also said the cameras would not make them feel safer.
Flock CEO Garrett Langley reportedly told law-enforcement personnel that a 404 Media report about police using Flock technology to track a person who self-administered an abortion was “entirely false.” The reference alleges that the denial was inaccurate but provides no supporting technical evidence or date for the underlying tracking incident.
Public records reviewed by WIRED showed that Alpharetta Police Department's Flock camera data was accessible to more than 2,000 police departments, colleges, airports, and government agencies, while Alpharetta received data from more than 1,300 entities. The resulting arrangement connected more than 2,300 nodes; outgoing and incoming sharing grew substantially from June 2025.
Flock said it will require law-enforcement users to provide case codes and deploy an audit tool intended to flag suspicious access by the end of the year. The measures were presented alongside a reduction of the recommended default ALPR-data retention period to seven days.
Former Lufkin, Texas officer Zachary Anthony Klein was indicted on 100 felony counts for allegedly conducting more than 45,000 Flock searches over about 200 days. The Lufkin Police Department suspended its use of Flock while investigations continued.
Deputy Christian Brewer was fired and arrested after an internal audit reportedly found personal use of Flock data, while investigator Jonathan Thomas was arrested following an internal misuse investigation.
Former Braselton, Georgia Police Chief Michael Steffman was arrested on stalking, harassment, and license-plate-reader misuse charges after allegedly using Flock searches roughly 600 times to monitor his former girlfriend and her daughter. He died before trial.
Fort Collins, Eugene, Madison, Knoxville, Syracuse, and Walla Walla deactivated Flock cameras or canceled their Flock contracts amid public and governmental backlash.
A Clermont County, Ohio grand jury declined to indict Cody Morelock on felony charges over the alleged destruction of a Flock camera, resulting in dismissal of the case.
Union Township, Ohio police alleged that Cody Morelock damaged a Flock camera on Mount Carmel-Tobasco Road near Glenrose Lane on June 13, identifying him using nearby surveillance footage.
Flock introduced additional default safeguards and reduced its default record-retention period from 30 days to one week, though customer agencies may be able to override the defaults.
Following reporting on the planned Flock-Nexar initiative, Flock said the partnership never materialized, without publicly explaining why.
A Flock presentation obtained by 404 Media showed the company pitching a proposed Nexar integration to the Georgia Attorney General's Office that would use Uber, Lyft, and delivery-driver dashcams for roaming ALPR collection.
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Flock Safety’s network of roughly **90,000** vehicle-surveillance cameras is facing renewed scrutiny after a false alert tied to partial license plate matching reportedly led Minnesota police to stop and arrest a driver in a Jaguar Land Rover media fleet vehicle. According to the account, a stolen New Jersey manufacturer plate was entered into Flock’s system as `34 DTM`, omitting smaller middle digits and causing the platform to match a broader `34 ## DTM` pattern. Flock said the system operated as configured and that law enforcement wanted partial-plate matching so officers could receive alerts even when plate data is incomplete. The incident has intensified criticism of Flock’s broader surveillance model, which uses Falcon automatic license plate reader cameras and Condor pan-tilt-zoom cameras to capture vehicle images and metadata, transmit them over cellular networks, and store searchable records in Flock’s cloud platform on Amazon Web Services. Privacy advocates and former law enforcement officials warn that shared cross-agency access, AI-assisted searches, insider misuse, and person-tracking capabilities can reconstruct individuals’ movements and turn bad data into dangerous police encounters. Public opposition has also grown in some communities, including Saranac Lake, where residents pushed officials to cancel a Flock contract and remove cameras.
Jul 21, 2026
Flock Safety announced changes to its automated license plate reader platform after sustained criticism over police misuse of its system, including allegations of stalking and improper searches. The company said it will recommend a **7-day default retention period** instead of 30 days, add offense-based sharing filters, require search-reason logging and Audit Assistance for law-enforcement customers, implement proactive account lockouts for abnormal activity, mandate multi-factor authentication, commission an independent security review by **Bishop Fox**, and launch a coordinated vulnerability disclosure program. Civil-liberties advocates said the measures do not resolve broader risks posed by Flock’s surveillance network, which spans more than **120,000 ALPRs** across at least **6,000 U.S. cities**. Critics argued that exceptions such as **Evidence Mode** could still allow indefinite retention, that prior search-purpose controls were reportedly easy to bypass, and that there is no independent proof the audit tooling reliably detects abuse. The backlash follows reports of at least **46 cases** of alleged improper access and adds to concerns about data sharing, wrongful stops, non-law-enforcement use, and the continued expansion of camera deployments.
Aug 20, 2026
Flock Safety announced privacy and security reforms for its automated license plate reader network after backlash over law enforcement misuse of the platform. The company said it will reduce its standard data retention period from 30 days to seven days, require officers to enter a reason or case code for searches except in genuine emergencies, and let agencies restrict what offense categories can be shared with other municipalities. Flock also introduced **Evidence Mode**, which allows longer preservation of data when permitted by local policy and tied to an investigation. The company said its **Audit Assistance** feature, which flags unusual search behavior for administrator review and can automatically lock out users, will become mandatory for all law enforcement customers by the end of the year. The changes follow reports that officers used Flock systems to stalk romantic partners and other individuals, including a Georgia case involving former sheriff’s deputies, while privacy advocates and researchers have questioned the tool’s transparency and whether independent auditing is needed. Flock defended the changes by saying most searches occur within a week and that its cameras were used in about 1 million investigations last year, including cases that helped locate roughly 10,000 missing people.
Aug 14, 2026