Topic
License plate readers
Automated license plate recognition generally, any vendor.
101 articles · page 5 of 6 · RSS
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Joplin officer no longer employed after alleged misuse of license plate tracking system
kctv5.com
A Joplin, Missouri police officer left the department amid an internal affairs investigation into misuse of the Flock license plate reader system, allegedly searching one plate roughly 395 times over 14 months while citing only "DWI" or "Warrants" without case numbers. Activist group Deflock Joplin says its analysis found the user accounted for about 25% of departmental Flock queries and questions the contract's approval and missing written policy. Police pledged monthly audits and cited cases solved with the system.
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Public safety must-have or threat to civil liberties? Debate over Flock license plate reader cameras has taken hold in North Bay
pressdemocrat.com
The Press Democrat surveys Flock deployments across the North Bay and finds Santa Rosa running the largest network in the region: 129 cameras with four more awaiting installation, under two contracts worth $421,650 and $897,999 in state and federal money, on a 30-day retention window. Healdsburg and Rohnert Park operate 26 and 23 cameras respectively.
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Eugene and Springfield both announce end of Flock camera usage
opb.org
Eugene and Springfield, Oregon, announced they are ending use of Flock Safety license plate cameras, citing unspecified vulnerabilities and limitations affecting data security and operational control. Eugene terminated its contract outright, while Springfield will remove cameras that were never activated but said it may seek another ALPR vendor. Opponents cited federal surveillance risks; police had credited the cameras with faster stolen-vehicle recoveries.
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How Cops Are Using Flock Safety's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists
eff.org
EFF analyzed more than 12 million Flock Safety ALPR searches logged by over 3,900 agencies between December 2024 and October 2025, obtained through public records requests. More than 50 federal, state, and local agencies ran hundreds of searches citing protest-related reasons, including "No Kings" rallies, immigration protests, and Direct Action Everywhere actions. Roughly 20 percent of all searches reviewed listed vague reasons such as "investigation" or "suspect."
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What the Flock is happening with license plate readers?
malwarebytes.com
An overview of how the Flock network reached well over 100,000 cameras across more than 4,000 cities, roughly one camera per 4,000 people. It explains the default 30-day retention window, how flagged records escape it, and the volunteer projects that have grown up to map deployments, including DeFlock and Have I Been Flocked.
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We Hacked Flock Safety Cameras in under 30 Seconds.
youtube.com
A video posted by Benn Jordan is titled as a demonstration of gaining access to Flock Safety cameras in under 30 seconds. The available page text consists only of the title and a sponsor message for Ground News, so no findings, methods, or Flock response are described in the accessible material.
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Leaving the Door Wide Open: Flock Surveillance Systems Expose Washington Data to Immigration Enforcement
jsis.washington.edu
Records obtained from 31 Washington law enforcement agencies show at least eight enabled direct data sharing of their Flock networks with U.S. Border Patrol during 2025, while audits indicate Border Patrol also had apparent access to networks of at least ten departments that never authorized it. Researchers documented searches run on behalf of ICE, out-of-state searches including a Texas abortion investigation, and discrepancies that obscure the true scope of sharing.
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Leaving the Door Wide Open: Flock Surveillance Systems Expose Washington Data to Immigration Enforcement
jsis.washington.edu
University of Washington researchers traced three routes by which federal immigration agents reached Washington ALPR data. At least eight local agencies enabled direct sharing with Border Patrol; agents ran thousands of searches on at least ten more departments' networks without explicit authorization; and a single county sheriff's search listing "ICE" as its reason touched 89 networks.
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Flock Safety and Texas Sheriff Claimed License Plate Search Was for a Missing Person. It Was an Abortion Investigation.
eff.org
Records obtained by EFF show Johnson County, Texas deputies opened a "death investigation" of a "non-viable fetus" after a woman's self-managed abortion, collected evidence of it, and asked prosecutors about charging her. A sergeant ran two Flock ALPR searches logged as "had an abortion, search for female," spanning up to 83,345 cameras nationwide, contradicting the sheriff's and Flock's claims it was a welfare check.
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Santa Rosa police chief addresses concerns about Flock cameras, privacy and ICE access
newsbreak.com
Santa Rosa Police Chief John Cregan told KRCB that the department's license plate reader data is shared only with a limited set of Northern California agencies under signed memoranda of understanding, and is not shared with federal agencies or used for immigration, political, medical, or religious tracking. He cited errors at Chico and Mountain View as human error and said a community meeting was scheduled for September 17 at the Utility Field Office.
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Breaking The Creepy AI in Police Cameras
youtube.com
A YouTube video whose description states that a private startup has been logging and sharing vehicle location data on United States drivers without their consent. The available text frames the piece as an examination of the artificial intelligence used in police camera systems. The description is truncated, so the full scope of the segment is not stated.
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California cops are breaking surveillance laws. Who's going to stop them?
sfstandard.com
The Attorney General's office has sent warning letters to at least twenty California agencies since June 2024 without going to court, and agencies kept sharing anyway. The California Highway Patrol ran an April search across 845 ALPR systems labeled "ICE case," and Sacramento County logged searches marked "DEA Assist" and "ATF" months after being warned.
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Flock Safety's Feature Updates Cannot Make Automated License Plate Readers Safe
eff.org
A Texas sheriff's office searched more than 83,000 Flock cameras to locate a woman suspected of self-managing an abortion, and records showed over 4,000 immigration-related lookups by state and local police with no formal ICE agreement in place. EFF argues that search-term blocking, case-number requirements, and audit alerts are easily defeated by vague or reused justifications.
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California police illegally share license plate reader data with ICE and Border Patrol
calmatters.org
Records obtained by Oakland Privacy showed California agencies breaking SB 34 more than 100 times in a single month by running plate searches for ICE and Customs and Border Protection, including the LAPD and the San Diego, Orange, and Riverside county sheriffs. Of 491,000 queries analyzed, more than 64,000 gave only a vague reason such as "investigation."
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‘Dumb as hell:’ Orange City officer accused of stalking woman using license plate readers
clickorlando.com
An Orange City, Florida police officer, Jarmarus Brown, was arrested on charges of stalking and improper computer access after a woman reported he tracked her movements. An audit of his Flock license plate reader searches found he repeatedly ran tags for three specific vehicles over roughly seven months. A fellow officer had warned him to stop. Brown told detectives his conduct was "dumb as hell."
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VICTORY! California Department of Justice Declares Out-of-State Sharing of License Plate Data Unlawful
eff.org
Attorney General Rob Bonta issued guidance confirming that SB 34 bars California police from sharing license plate data with out-of-state or federal agencies. EFF notes agencies had been sharing with hundreds of out-of-state agencies, including in states restricting abortion, and with CBP and ICE, and that over 99.9% of collected data connects to no crime.
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San Francisco Woman Pulled Out of Car at Gunpoint Because of License Plate Reader Error
aclu.org
A plate reader misread one digit of Denise Green's license plate in 2009, flagging her burgundy Lexus as a stolen gray GMC truck. San Francisco officers stopped her at gunpoint and searched her for twenty minutes without first verifying the plate visually. The Ninth Circuit reinstated her lawsuit after a district court initially ruled the mistake reasonable.
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Flock Is Canceled—And Its Competitors Are Profiting
motherjones.com
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced the revocation of all law enforcement license-plate-recognition permits on state highways, and Texas ordered state agencies to stop funding Flock cameras. Secure Justice counted 90 of 214 total municipal Flock cancellations in August 2026 alone. Advocates warn that targeting one vendor leaves competitors such as Motorola, Rekor, and Axon to fill the gap, with Rekor calling for national rules including warrants for some plate searches.
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Do license plate readers enhance the initial and residual deterrent effects of police patrol? A quasi-randomized test
nij.ojp.gov
A 2021 randomized field experiment assigned license plate readers to some hot-spot patrols and not others, analyzing 785 patrols across 33 locations. Stolen vehicle recoveries rose, but arrests did not, and the readers produced no measurable drop in calls for service during or after patrols. The authors found little clear evidence that ALPRs prevent crime in general patrol.
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Judge Rules Lawsuit Challenging Norfolk's Use of Flock Cameras Can Proceed
ij.org
The Institute for Justice announced that a federal judge declined to dismiss its Fourth Amendment challenge to Norfolk's 172-camera Flock network, citing Carpenter v. United States on warrantless location tracking. Plaintiffs Lee Schmidt and Crystal Arrington argue that a city-wide record of their daily movements is a search requiring a warrant.