{"meta":{"exportedAt":"2026-10-03T07:42:29.674Z","formatVersion":2,"selection":{"q":"fourth-amendment","system":"","harm":"","context":"","country":"","role":"","relation":"contextual","evidence":"","year":"","response":"","severity":"","verification":"","view":"incidents","sort":"added"},"totalIncidents":1,"coverage":{"cases":1,"countries":1,"languages":1,"unknownLocation":0,"locationPending":0,"unknownLanguage":0,"unknownDate":0,"lawsuits":0,"regulatory":0,"minors":0,"coreRelations":0,"contextualRelations":1,"mixedRelations":0,"unknownRelations":0,"relationPending":0,"relationUnknown":0},"countingNote":"Distinct public cases in this selection. People counts apply within individual cases only; cross-case person overlap has not been resolved. No population incidence estimate.","affectedCountNote":"Interpret person counts with affectedCountStatus and the reported effects. Unquantified zeros are placeholders, not a measured zero.","source":"AI incidents","publisher":"NOPE","url":"https://nope.net/incidents","license":"CC BY 4.0"},"incidents":[{"id":"2026-tulsa-county-oklahoma-flock-alpr-warrantless-location-search-unconstitutional-evidence-suppressed","caseFacts":{"claims":[{"id":"c1","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'for no apparent reason other than the fact that it had a California license plate'; 'gathering and organizing historical data about a vehicle'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'Alaniz also ran a query on the Flock system for the California license plate number on the Mazda SUV'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The court found that a Tulsa County deputy sheriff followed the driver's SUV for no apparent reason other than its California licence plate and ran the plate through the Flock system; he had access to the Flock and VehicleManager ALPR systems, which gather and organise historical data about a vehicle's whereabouts.","causal_attribution":"Findings of fact in the court's opinion after an evidentiary hearing."},{"id":"c2","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'use of the ALPR Systems was an Unconstitutional Warrantless Search'; 'search in just the ALPR system provided him with more than 50 individual records of'; 'intruded on her reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of her physical movements'; 'the only reason Alaniz conducted that search was because he saw her license plate was from California'; 'That search was not supported by probable cause, and it was done without a warrant'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'provided him with more than 50 individual records of'; 'was not supported by probable cause, and it was done without a warrant'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"The court held that the deputy's use of the ALPR systems was an unconstitutional warrantless search: it provided more than 50 records of her whereabouts across the country for an entire month, intruded on her reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of her movements, was run only because the plate was from California, and was not supported by probable cause.","causal_attribution":"The court's holding (page 37 of the opinion carries the 50-records and probable-cause passages, quoted verbatim by 404 Media). Flock says it expects an appeal; the ruling does not bind other courts."},{"id":"c3","status":"reported","evidence":[{"locator":"'the officers conducted a search of the vehicle, which resulted in'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'while he continued to review the ALPR systems for the car she was driving'; 'He used her travel history as seen in the Flock system as part of the justification to search her car'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"}],"assertion":"After the stop, the deputy questioned her about her travel while reviewing the ALPR results, detained her for a dog sniff when she refused consent to a search, and the search of the car resulted in her arrest; 404 Media reports 91 pounds of methamphetamine were found and that the deputy used her Flock travel history as part of the justification for the search.","causal_attribution":"The sequence is the court's finding; the drug quantity and the characterisation of the travel history as part of the justification are 404 Media's reading. The court also found that the ALPR results were consistent with her account of her travel."},{"id":"c4","status":"documented","evidence":[{"locator":"'all evidence obtained after Alaniz initiated the ALPR search must be suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s1"},{"locator":"'ruled that all Flock evidence and all evidence from'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s2"},{"locator":"'was detained after a Detention Hearing pending further proceedings of the Court.'; 'The evidence the Court relied upon in detaining'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s3"},{"locator":"'Detention Hearing held on 5/18/2026'; 'ordering defendant be detained'","relation":"supports","source_id":"s4"}],"assertion":"The court ordered all evidence obtained after the deputy initiated the ALPR search suppressed; she had been detained pending trial, and her lawyer moved on 1 October 2026 to revoke the detention order because the evidence relied on to detain her is no longer admissible.","causal_attribution":"Suppression is the court's order (opinion conclusion, page 38: 'all evidence obtained after Alaniz initiated the ALPR search must be suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree'). The detention is documented by the defence filing and docket; the detention hearing of 18 May 2026 and the detention order are from the docket (s4). The motion's characterisation is the defence's."}],"effects":[{"label":"a driver's month-long licence-plate-reader location history was searched without a warrant because her car had California plates; a federal court held the search violated her Fourth Amendment rights","claim_id":"c2","direction":"negative"},{"label":"she was arrested after the stop and held in pretrial detention from May 2026 on evidence the court later suppressed as flowing from the search","claim_id":"c4","direction":"negative"}],"sources":[{"id":"s1","url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.oknd.76981/gov.uscourts.oknd.76981.62.0.pdf","kind":"court_order","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Opinion and Order (ECF 62, 38 pages), read on 2026-10-03 as a free RECAP PDF from CourtListener.","independence_group":"oknd-26-cr-189-record"},{"id":"s2","url":"https://www.404media.co/federal-judge-rules-a-flock-search-was-indiscriminate-mass-surveillance-and-unconstitutional/","kind":"news_report","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"404 Media article read live on 2026-10-03. It reports the opinion and adds a Flock statement and the quantity of drugs found; for the court's findings it depends on the same record.","independence_group":"oknd-26-cr-189-record"},{"id":"s3","url":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.oknd.76981/gov.uscourts.oknd.76981.63.0.pdf","kind":"court_filing","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"Defence motion (ECF 63, 2 pages), read on 2026-10-03 as a free RECAP PDF from CourtListener. A party's filing; its statements are the defence's.","independence_group":"oknd-26-cr-189-record"},{"id":"s4","url":"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73367335/united-states/","kind":"court_docket","access":"read","language":"en","translation_note":"CourtListener docket for N.D. Okla. 4:26-cr-00189, read on 2026-10-03 at a URL path without the defendant's name (body saved by the verifier as bodies/verify-us-cl-docket-73367335-united-states.html; same docket as inst/cl-docket-73367335.html). Docket entries are the clerk's record.","independence_group":"oknd-26-cr-189-record"}],"version":1,"ai_roles":["institutional_use"],"contexts":["justice","privacy"],"unknowns":["The exact date of the stop (404 Media says May; the docket opens in May 2026).","Whether the government will appeal and whether the charges will be dismissed.","Whether and when she was released from detention after the ruling.","How many other drivers were searched in the same way by this deputy."],"geography":{"basis":"The stop took place on a highway in the Tulsa area of Oklahoma and the case is in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma (opinion). The car had California plates; where the driver lives is not stated here.","court_countries":["US"],"event_countries":["US"],"affected_person_countries":["US"]},"publication":{"basis":"Published as a contextual case (made_claim_about; institutional use): a federal court found that a deputy's warrantless query of a driver's month-long location history in licence-plate-reader systems violated her Fourth Amendment rights and suppressed the evidence that followed, after she had been held in pretrial detention. The court's findings are marked documented; the drug quantity and the AI characterisation come from 404 Media. The driver is not named here.","reviewed_on":"2026-10-03"},"ai_involvement":{"basis":"The court describes the Flock and VehicleManager ALPR systems as gathering and organising historical data about a vehicle's whereabouts from networked cameras, and found the deputy's query returned more than 50 location records for her car; those records are the systems' claims about where her vehicle had been. The court does not use the term AI; 404 Media describes Flock as an AI-powered surveillance system. The decision to follow, stop and search the car was the deputy's.","status":"reported"},"person_relations":["made_claim_about"]},"name":"Tulsa County, Oklahoma: a federal judge ruled on 1 October 2026 that a sheriff's deputy's warrantless search of a driver's month-long location history in the Flock and VehicleManager licence-plate-reader systems, run because her car had California plates, violated her Fourth Amendment rights, and suppressed all evidence obtained after the search; she had been held in pretrial detention since May","summary":"In an opinion and order of 1 October 2026 in a federal drug prosecution in the Northern District of Oklahoma, Judge Sara E. Hill found that a Tulsa County deputy sheriff followed a driver's car on the highway for no apparent reason other than its California licence plate and queried it in the Flock and VehicleManager automated licence plate reader (ALPR) systems, which 404 Media describes as an AI-powered surveillance system. The court found that the search returned more than 50 records of her whereabouts across the country over a month, that it was a warrantless search without probable cause in violation of her Fourth Amendment rights, and that all evidence obtained after the deputy began the ALPR search must be suppressed. The deputy had stopped her for a lane change, detained her for a dog sniff after she refused consent, and searched the car; 404 Media reports that he found 91 pounds of methamphetamine. The docket shows she was ordered detained pending trial in May 2026. After the ruling her lawyer asked the court to revoke the detention order, saying the evidence relied on to detain her is inadmissible. Flock told 404 Media it expects the ruling to be appealed.","incidentDate":"2026-05-01","incidentKind":"single_event","incidentDatePrecision":"month","exposurePattern":"unknown","reportedDate":"2026-10-02","aiSystem":"Flock Safety and VehicleManager automated licence plate reader (ALPR) systems, which record and organise the locations at which a vehicle's plate is seen by networked cameras; 404 Media describes Flock as an AI-powered surveillance system","aiProduct":"Flock Safety license plate readers","aiCompany":"Flock Safety","severity":"medium","verificationStatus":"credible","harmCategories":[],"harmOutcomes":["loss_of_liberty","legal_harm"],"harmOutcomeSummary":"A federal court found that a deputy's warrantless search of a driver's month-long location history in licence-plate-reader systems violated her Fourth Amendment rights; the arrest and the evidence on which she was held in pretrial detention since May flowed from the stop the court tied to that search. The privacy violation is established by the court; the evidence itself was found in her car and the prosecution's next step is not yet known.","frameworkFacets":[],"causationStatus":"supported","participantUsersAffectedMin":0,"otherPeopleHarmedMin":1,"affectedCountStatus":"exact","affectedCountEvidence":"One person, the driver whose ALPR location history was searched and who was arrested and detained (court opinion and defence motion).","victimAgeRange":"adult","jurisdiction":"US-OK","platformType":"other","outcomeType":"criminal_charges","outcomeStatus":"ongoing","primarySourceUrl":"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.oknd.76981/gov.uscourts.oknd.76981.62.0.pdf","primarySourceLabel":"U.S. District Court, N.D. Oklahoma, Case No. 26-CR-00189-SEH, Opinion and Order granting motion to suppress, 1 October 2026","firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-03T03:17:47.292686+00:00","updatedAt":"2026-10-03T03:17:47.292686+00:00","scopeVersion":"facts-v3","tags":["flock","alpr","license-plate-reader","fourth-amendment","suppression","oklahoma","tulsa-county","pretrial-detention","institutional-use","made-claim-about"]}]}