Event date unknownUnited StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
USA TODAY's analysis of Flock Safety license-plate-reader audit logs found that an officer of the Perry Police Department in Georgia looked up a single license plate more than 4,000 times over 16 months. It was one of six plates she repeatedly searched; two were registered to cars owned by her co-workers and another belonged to her daughter's father. She left the department in April 2025 to become a school resource officer with the Houston County Sheriff's Office and kept searching from her Perry police-issued Flock account for at least four months afterwards, according to the logs. The Perry police chief told USA TODAY the department had not known how often she searched the plates before the newspaper asked. The sheriff's office suspended her without pay on 17 August 2026, and she was arrested two days later on charges of misusing a license plate reader system.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 04/10/2026
Jun 2023United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
A Covington Police Department internal review, obtained by USA TODAY, found that a detective had searched the license plate of a woman he used to date, a Covington police employee, 41 times on the Flock license-plate-reader system since January 2026, after Flock's audit tool flagged his activity in July. He also searched the plates of her new boyfriend and of a second former partner. USA TODAY's analysis of audit logs found 2,890 searches of the woman's plate from June 2023 to October 2025, nearly every day for 14 months. The woman told USA TODAY she had suspected a tracking device on her car because he showed up unannounced and seemed to know where she had been, and that she was scared when told the full number in early August. The department fired the detective and referred him to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which arrested him on 26 August 2026 and charged him with misuse of a license plate reader system and violation of oath.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 04/10/2026
Jul 2024 to May 2025United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested the former 911 director of the Dallas Police Department in Paulding County, Georgia, on 12 August 2026 on two misdemeanor counts of misuse of a license plate reader system, after the department asked it on 7 July to investigate misuse of the department's Flock Safety system between 2024 and 2025. A USA TODAY analysis of Flock audit logs found that she had searched more than 2,500 times for the cars of her estranged husband and his new girlfriend, almost every day from July 2024 to May 2025 and as many as 39 times in one day. The couple told USA TODAY that in the months after the separation she repeatedly showed up unannounced at restaurants where they ate, at the hospital where the girlfriend works and at a rural Alabama property they visit. The girlfriend said she fears for her safety and, according to court records, filed a petition for a restraining order on 20 August citing the Flock searches. USA TODAY had contacted the department about the searches on 6 July. The charges are allegations.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 04/10/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
According to Cheektowaga Police Chief Brian Coons, an internal audit found that three public safety dispatchers of the Cheektowaga Police Department in New York had searched for a department employee's license plate in the department's Flock license-plate-reader system over a period of months, and the employee was not aware of the searches. The department said the behavior stopped and an investigation followed to determine the scope of the policy violation and whether the public was targeted. On 30 September 2026 the chief announced that the three, one of whom has since become a police officer, had been suspended for multiple policy violations. The Erie County District Attorney's Office was consulted; no criminal charge has been reported, and WKBW reported that further disciplinary sanctions had not yet been filed.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 04/10/2026
Jun 2024 to Dec 2025United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
A Lufkin Police Department officer of 11 years pleaded guilty on 30 September 2026 to 100 counts of misuse of official information and was sentenced to five years in prison, according to the Angelina County District Attorney as reported by KTRE, the Lufkin Daily News and the Tyler Morning Telegraph. A Texas Rangers investigation found he ran more than 25,000 license-plate inquiries on the department's Flock Safety readers for purposes unrelated to law enforcement, about 18,000 of them on plates associated with three people. Prosecutors say he used Flock and other law-enforcement databases to gather the identities, home addresses, plates and vehicle registrations of his former girlfriend, her family members and people she had dated. His arrest affidavit, reported by KTRE in August, says her plate alone was searched more than 10,000 times between June 2024 and December 2025, and that she told investigators he had once threatened to find and kill a former partner of hers. He agreed to a lifetime protective order for her on the basis of stalking, and the state dropped separate stalking charges. The audit began after USA Today asked the department about an officer's Flock use in August 2026. Lufkin has suspended its use of the cameras.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 04/10/2026
Jan 2025 to Jul 2026United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
According to Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, an audit showed that a deputy had searched a 35-year-old woman's license plate 300 times through the sheriff's office's automated license-plate-reader system, which includes Flock cameras, between January 2025 and July 2026. Investigators found 81 further queries about her in other law enforcement databases. The sheriff said the deputy had arrested the woman in 2010 and later wanted a relationship with her, and that when questioned he admitted making the searches for that reason; she had declined his advances. The woman was not under investigation. The sheriff said the searches came to light through a media inquiry, and TCPalm reports that it had asked the office on 20 August about abnormal Flock searches by its personnel. The deputy resigned on 11 September and was arrested on 30 September 2026 on four counts of unlawfully accessing a computer system and one count of official misconduct.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 04/10/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
The Hall County Sheriff's Office in Georgia fired a property crimes investigator on 2 September 2026 after its Internal Affairs Unit determined that the investigator had used the agency's Flock license-plate-reader system multiple times to find the whereabouts of a person the investigator knew. The sheriff's office said the searches were personal and had no connection to a legitimate law enforcement purpose. It was the third investigator fired during an audit of the agency's Flock use, and the sheriff's office said the violations would be referred to the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council and the Hall County Solicitor's Office. The press release did not mention criminal charges, and the person searched was not identified.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 04/10/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
According to Mooresville Police Chief Ron Campurciani, a monthly audit of the department's Flock license-plate-reader system found that one of its officers had accessed the system 31 times for personal use, to find information about and track the movements of her boyfriend's ex-wife. The chief said she accessed the cameras at least twice while off duty and logged most of the searches as motor vehicle infractions, and the department said she was not truthful about why she accessed the data. She was arrested on 5 August 2026 and charged with accessing computers, a misdemeanor, and court records show she was released on a $5,000 bond. The chief said the department was reviewing 10 other potential misuse cases and now requires officers to link an active case number to every search. The charge is an allegation.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 04/10/2026
23 Oct 2022United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
According to the Sedgwick County District Attorney, a lieutenant of the Kechi Police Department in Kansas took advantage of his position to use the Flock License Plate Reader system to monitor his estranged wife's location. The woman had told a friend that she was scared and thought he was somehow tracking her whereabouts, and the friend asked a Wichita police officer how someone could get a protection-from-stalking order. Wichita police arrested the lieutenant on 26 October 2022 and he was removed from the Kechi department. On 5 April 2023 he pleaded guilty to computer crime and stalking, both misdemeanors, and was sentenced to a controlling term of 24 months in jail, with probation granted for 18 months. The Wichita Police Department, whose Flock system he had used, revoked the whole Kechi department's access and said it would audit the system weekly, and the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers' Standards revoked his certification in August 2023.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 6 sources, 5 underlying accounts · Added 03/10/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
The New Bedford Police Department in Massachusetts placed an officer on administrative leave in August 2026 after an audit of its Flock license-plate-reader system, begun on 31 July, flagged activity that raised concerns about unauthorized use and found a personal connection between the officer and a person associated with a license plate that had been searched. The officer's former girlfriend, who ended their relationship in early April 2026, says in an affidavit reported by Boston.com that she then received endless calls and messages and that the officer showed up at her home unannounced, once while on duty in a cruiser. WJAR reports that she alleged the department had told her that her plate had been searched in its Flock database a concerning number of times, and NBC Boston reports her testimony that police told her the officer was tracking her vehicle and that this made her feel she was being followed. On 13 August New Bedford District Court extended an abuse prevention order against the officer for six months. The officer testified that the searches were for a legitimate drug investigation involving another driver of the car. The department suspended its use of Flock on 11 August while it reviews the system; its internal investigation is open and no criminal charge has been reported.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 03/10/2026
Sept 2023United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
On 23 September 2026 the Marion County Prosecutor's Office charged four suspended Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) officers and one former officer with fraud and official misconduct after internal audits in August and September 2026 found misuse of the department's Flock Safety automated license-plate-reader (ALPR) system; one officer was also charged with two counts of stalking. According to prosecutors, the probable cause affidavit and court documents as reported by WISH-TV, that officer made 1,396 searches with no apparent law-enforcement purpose, began searching the plate of a woman he met at a workout class in September 2023 nine days after meeting her and messaged her from a Facebook account under a false name, also tracked his ex-wife and a woman he met at her workplace (telling her he was an FBI agent), and in total conducted unauthorised surveillance of 11 people, seven women and four men. Another officer made 1,616 searches between April 2024 and April 2025 for two plates, one his ex-wife's, using another officer's credentials. The chief placed the officers on desk duty, revoked their ALPR access, suspended four and recommended their dismissal; one resigned. The department said the misuse came to light after an officer self-reported and an audit followed; the prosecutor said each count corresponds to one license plate. IMPD, which leases about 301 Flock cameras and can search a shared national network, has since required every user to sign its ALPR policy, tied each search to a case number, adopted single logins and increased audits, and said it will not reduce its cameras.
Contextual tracker case High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 25/09/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
San Jose's police chief announced on 11 September 2026 that an officer had been fired after accessing the department's Flock Safety automated license-plate-reader data on his personal phone and giving a vehicle's location to his cousin, a suspect in a domestic-violence case, who used it to locate the woman accusing him. The chief called it 'a betrayal of the public trust', said the officer was placed on leave, criminally investigated and referred to the district attorney, and that the case was submitted to California's peace-officer standards commission for decertification; neither the officer nor the cousin has been charged. The department has since barred access to the system from personal devices and is testing auditing tools. Neither the victim nor the officer is named in the inspected reports.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 16/09/2026
1 Nov 2024 to 28 Jan 2026United StatesTurnitin AI-text detector
Orion Newby, an Adelphi University first-year student with language and auditory processing disabilities, received a zero in November 2024 on a World Civilizations paper after the professor suspected it was AI-generated and the university relied in part on AI-detection software; he was ordered to attend a plagiarism workshop and his appeal was denied, leaving him one finding from suspension or expulsion. Newby — who had written the paper with 15-20 hours of tutor support through the university's own disability program — said the detectors flagged his citations, and two other detectors scored the paper as human. After the family sued, New York State Supreme Court Judge Randy Sue Marber in Nassau County ruled on 28 January 2026 that Adelphi's finding and its denial of his appeal were 'without valid basis and devoid of reason' and ordered his record expunged. The family spent six figures on legal costs.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Filed
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 15/09/2026