Loading story…
The Florida Department of Transportation revoked permits for automated license-plate-reader cameras in state highway rights-of-way, giving law-enforcement agencies 30 days to remove the devices. The action affects private ALPR providers including Flock Safety, whose network collects vehicle sightings that can be searched and shared among jurisdictions; Governor Ron DeSantis said the state would not support an expanding “digital AI surveillance state.”
Florida cited privacy, data-sharing and misuse concerns amid wider scrutiny of Flock's roughly 130,000 U.S. cameras. Reports have raised concerns over unauthorized law-enforcement database searches, cybersecurity weaknesses, inaccurate matches linked to police stops and wrongful arrests, and the company's expansion from plate recognition toward identifying and tracking people. Texas has likewise directed state agencies to stop funding Flock cameras, while other jurisdictions have cancelled contracts or pursued restrictions.
See the reporting duties and controls this puts on the clock.
4 events from the most recent confirmed update back to the earliest known activity.
At a press conference, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said license-plate-reading technology was out of control and warned against a digital AI surveillance state that continually tracks residents.
A Lufkin, Texas, police officer was indicted on 100 felony counts for allegedly using Flock's database to track people without authorization.
Texas ordered state agencies to stop funding Flock cameras after concerns about abuse of the company's surveillance system. The order did not identify the affected agencies.
The Florida Department of Transportation revoked permits for automated license-plate readers in state highway rights-of-way, including Flock cameras, and gave law-enforcement agencies 30 days to remove the devices. FDOT cited reported misuse, privacy concerns, and surveillance schemes.
Vulnerabilities, threat actors, malware, products, organizations, and breaches Mallory has linked to this story.
See what this changes for your reporting obligations and which controls it puts on the clock.
2 references tracked. Mallory keeps watching after this page renders.
Map indicators from this story to your assets and identify affected systems in minutes.
Every observed campaign, victim, and pivot linked to actors named in this story.
Malware, exploits, and IOCs connected to the activity described here.
YARA, Sigma, and Snort rules deployed to your SIEM as soon as they’re published.
Get matching new stories delivered to your team as they break — not the next morning.
Ask questions about this story and take action on the answers.
Other stories Mallory is tracking that overlap on entities, sources, or topic labels.
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.
Sep 4, 2026
Authorities in St. Lucie County, Florida, identified 14 Flock vehicle-tracking cameras operating without required permits after a mandate to remove the devices from county roads. The St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office claimed three, leaving 11 without an identified owner, according to Ars Technica. The sheriff’s office did not explain why it had not obtained permits or whether it accessed recordings from its cameras. The discovery raised questions about who operated the remaining devices and who could access the sensitive vehicle-location data they collected. The findings come amid reported misuse of Flock databases by Florida police officers for personal surveillance, including stalking, and criticism that the company’s safeguards are inadequate. Security commentator Bruce Schneier highlighted the unidentified cameras as an example of surveillance infrastructure that could be exploited by friendly or hostile actors, drawing a parallel with unidentified StingRay devices in Washington, DC. A local government operator was suggested as a possibility, but remains unverified; neither report establishes a Flock network compromise or foreign involvement. The immediate concern is accountability for camera ownership, deployment authorization, and access to collected data.
Oct 2, 2026
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