Event date unknownUnited StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
The Colleton County Sheriff's Office in South Carolina terminated a lieutenant on 31 August 2026 after the department said the lieutenant had conducted 62 unauthorized searches in its Flock license-plate-reader system. According to Live 5 News, an internal audit found that the searches included inquiries on vehicles registered to the lieutenant's spouse and to other acquaintances. Another lieutenant at the same office had been fired earlier that month after an audit revealed more than 2,700 unauthorized Flock searches. The sheriff said he had asked the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to investigate potential criminal conduct. No charges are reported, and the people searched are not identified.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 05/10/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
The Albany County Sheriff's Office in New York said a senior investigator conducted more than 4,000 unauthorized searches of the Flock license-plate-reader system involving five people known to the investigator. According to the sheriff's office, the searches include tracking a former girlfriend's vehicle around 3,000 times and running four other plates hundreds of times each. The sheriff said an outside source prompted the investigation. The investigator, a 13-year veteran of the office, was arrested on 9 September 2026 and charged with official misconduct and falsifying business records, both misdemeanors, and was suspended indefinitely. The sheriff said access to Flock data is now limited to supervisors and audited every 30 days. The five people are not identified, and the dates of the searches are not reported. The charges are allegations.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 05/10/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesUnidentified license plate reader
KSHB 41 reported on 6 April 2026 that a court affidavit accuses a former Bonner Springs Police Department detective of using license plate readers, such as Flock cameras, to track the detective's wife and two men the detective believed were involved with her. The affidavit says the detective also used the department's access to a police data service to track the three people more than 20 times in late December, and made three more searches after being served with a protection order the wife had obtained. The wife told Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents she had separated from the detective in November 2025. Bonner Springs police terminated the detective on 26 January after an internal investigation. In March the Wyandotte County District Attorney filed 18 charges, including stalking and breach of privacy, and the detective was arrested on 18 March. The charges are allegations.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 05/10/2026
16 Mar 2022United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers (reported)
In March 2022 a Bexar County Sheriff's deputy in Texas stopped a Houston man on Interstate 35 as he drove home from a work trip near the border, saying he had drifted over the fog line. The driver was questioned in the patrol car and refused consent to a search. A police dog was brought in and alerted, the truck was searched, and nothing was found. He was held for 76 minutes. His lawyers at the Institute for Justice say that, with the use of licence-plate-reading cameras, the quick trip to the border and back was flagged as suspicious and that officers then coordinated the stop through a group chat. One of them told the San Antonio Current that an AI-powered camera flagged the plate and that an anonymous law enforcement agent decided the trip looked suspicious. The San Antonio Current names the cameras as Flock's, and Reason describes them as AI-powered licence plate readers that flagged an abnormal driving pattern. On Monday 28 September 2026 (the reports say 'on Monday'; the date is worked out from their publication dates) a jury in federal court in San Antonio found that Bexar County had violated the driver's Fourth Amendment rights and awarded $76, one dollar for each minute. The county's lawyer said it plans post-trial motions and may appeal. The sheriff's office declined to comment on active litigation.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 05/10/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
The Savannah Police Department in Georgia terminated four sworn officers and two civilian employees after an internal investigation, begun on 27 July 2026, found that employees had run searches on personal acquaintances and family members in the department's Flock license-plate-reader system. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested four of the former employees on 21 August 2026. One of them, a former corporal charged with two counts of misuse of a license plate reader system and one count of violation of oath of office, appealed the firing. WTOC's 21 September 2026 report of the appeal hearing said the former corporal admitted to six improper license plate searches, two involving the officer's wife and four involving one of her coworkers. Neither person is identified, and no source says whether they knew of the searches. A decision on the appeal was pending.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 05/10/2026
Jan 2026 to May 2026United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
A patrol officer with the Shively Police Department in Kentucky was arrested in August 2026 and charged with five counts of official misconduct and five counts of unlawful access to a computer. Court records cited by CNN say the officer ran 2,048 searches of the department's Flock license-plate-reader system from January into May to track two vehicles registered to the mother of the officer's child, in Kentucky and Indiana. According to the court records, the officer harassed the woman and made threatening comments during that period, and she sought a protective order. The police chief said 241 of the searches were run while that order was in place. Officials said at the news conference that the officer had entered a drug investigation as the reason for the searches, although the woman was not the subject of one. An audit tool supplied by Flock flagged the searches to the department, which arrested the officer the next day and suspended the officer without pay. Spectrum News reported on 31 August 2026 that the officer had pleaded not guilty.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 05/10/2026
Event date unknownUnited StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
WKMG News 6 reported, from Brevard County Sheriff's Office investigation records, that a deputy searched a former girlfriend's license plate once in the agency's Flock license plate reader system before the start of a shift. The search was logged as being for investigation purposes. The woman had emailed the sheriff's office with allegations about the deputy and told investigators that he once discussed watching her on the Flock system. She did not know whether her vehicle's location had been tracked. The deputy denied checking her registration to spy on her or out of revenge and could not give a reason for the query. The administrative investigation also examined other alleged misconduct that did not involve the Flock system. The sheriff stated an intent to terminate the deputy, who resigned on 27 May. News 6 found no indication of a criminal investigation.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Internal Action
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 05/10/2026
26 Sept 2026United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
WEKU, WKYT and LEX 18 reported that Lexington police surrounded a couple's home in the early hours of 26 September 2026 while investigating a reported assault in a road-rage incident. The victim had described a dark pickup truck and gave no license plate. The Lexington Police Department said officers searched its Flock camera network using the description, that only one return matched at that time of day, and that this led to the response to the residence. Doorbell video showed several police cars, spotlights and an officer with a gun unholstered at the door. Officers told the couple they were not suspects and left after about ten minutes. Police said they determined the truck was not the suspect vehicle, placed no charges and described the visit as following up a lead, not a misidentification. The residents said the response frightened them and a 94-year-old relative inside the home.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources · Added 05/10/2026
26 Nov 2025United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
Times of San Diego reported on 7 June 2026, from police reports and tort claims, that on 26 November 2025 San Diego police pursued a red Alfa Romeo after an attempted carjacking in Golden Hill but did not get its plate. A Flock automated license plate reader in Old Town, five miles away, captured a photo of a red Alfa Romeo 23 seconds after the stop attempt, and a pursuing detective recognized it by its red paint and tinted windows. Officers arrested three men leaving that car at an Old Town cigar lounge; the victim identified the passenger in a curbside lineup, and a search found no weapons. The driver bailed out the next day; the passenger spent nearly a month in jail, missing Thanksgiving, before the assault with a firearm and evasion charges were dropped. The two men's tort claims say police misread their own surveillance system; their attorney said the city had denied the claims and that a lawsuit would follow.
Contextual tracker case High reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 04/10/2026
7 Oct 2025 to 14 Oct 2025United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
According to a criminal complaint reported by WBAY and NBC 26, a Menasha police officer used his department credentials while off duty in October 2025 to search the Flock automated license-plate-reader network for vehicles belonging to his ex-girlfriend, giving "welfare" as the reason. She had told Appleton police she was concerned he was using the system to track her car and check whether it was where she had said. Investigators found seven searches between 7 and 14 October, five of them for her cars. The officer was arrested in January 2026, charged with felony misconduct in office, pleaded no contest and resigned. On 17 August 2026 a judge rejected the agreed sentencing recommendation and imposed six months in jail followed by three years of probation. On 19 August 2026 the judge denied a defense request to release him on bond while he appeals the sentence, according to Fox 11.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 04/10/2026
10 Jan 2024 to 7 Jan 2025United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
Wisconsin Public Radio reported on 9 July 2026 that a Milwaukee Police Department detective assigned to the internal affairs division had been charged that week with misconduct in public office, a felony, and misuse of a GPS device. According to the criminal complaint as reported by WPR, he searched one person's license plate in the department's Flock license-plate-reader system 17 times between 10 January 2024 and 3 January 2025, searched another person's plate three times on 7 January 2025 listing 'training' as the reason, and admitted using the Flock system to track the whereabouts of the two people and installing a GPS device on the first person's vehicle. The detective had conducted the department's investigation into an earlier Milwaukee officer's Flock misuse, and had been suspended since 13 March 2026. The charges are allegations; he had not yet appeared in court on them when WPR reported.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 04/10/2026
26 Mar 2025 to 26 May 2025United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
Between 26 March and 26 May 2025 a Milwaukee police officer used the department's Flock license-plate-reader system to look up the plates of the person he was dating and of that person's former partner, listing 'investigation' as the reason each time. Prosecutors say he searched the pair's plates 179 times in all. He was charged with misconduct in February 2026, resigned, and pleaded guilty on 11 June 2026 to attempted misconduct in public office. In June a court commissioner granted both people four-year restraining orders against him; the woman wrote in her petition that his tracking was 'continual, repetitive, obsessive behavior' and that she lives in a constant state of fear and unease, and the other person wrote that he feared for his safety. On 15 July 2026 he was sentenced to probation and fined $500, with no contact with either victim.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 04/10/2026
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
Dec 2024 to Mar 2026United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
Indiana State Police arrested a Hancock County Sheriff's Office deputy on 24 September 2026 on charges of intimidation, official misconduct and fraud. According to the state police, an investigation that began in April 2026 over threatening text messages the deputy sent to a family member uncovered unauthorized searches in the automatic license-plate-reader camera database that were specific to people he was familiar with. Court documents reported by the Indianapolis Star allege more than 6,190 Flock searches between December 2024 and March 2026, only 40 of them on duty, including more than 1,100 searches for his wife's vehicle, more than 1,100 for a man who knew his wife, more than 200 for a former girlfriend from high school and searches for another former girlfriend's husband. He is also accused of pulling over a former girlfriend's child after finding them through a Flock search. The charges are allegations; a court date was set for 29 October 2026.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · 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
Oct 2025 to Jul 2026United StatesFlock Safety license plate readers
According to Fort Pierce Police Chief David Smith, a former officer of the Fort Pierce Police Department used the department's Flock automated license-plate-reader database 382 times between October 2025 and July 2026 to search the same license plate, mostly while off duty and without a legitimate law enforcement purpose, and investigators determined the vehicle was registered to his ex-girlfriend. The chief said records from other law enforcement databases showed the officer's access involving the woman stretched back to 2023. The department opened its investigation after a TCPalm reporter asked on 7 August 2026 about the searches; the officer was placed on leave that day and resigned on 18 August. TCPalm reports that the woman filed for a restraining order on 14 August, accusing him of stalking and cyberstalking. He was arrested on 8 September 2026 on four felony counts related to unauthorized computer access and held on an $80,000 bond. 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