Four Police Departments Flock Showcased as Model Users Now Face License Plate Tech Misuse Allegations

Flock Safety built its brand on showcasing police departments that used its automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras well. Four of those same departments are now dealing with officers accused of abusing that access, according to WIRED.

Flock featured the Savannah Police Department in a March 2022 YouTube video. Four officers and two civilian workers from that department were recently placed on administrative leave after an internal investigation found what the department called "potential misuses" of the ALPR system, WIRED reported.

The Albany Police Department, also in Georgia, got the glossy treatment in a 2024 Flock video featuring senior crime and intelligence analyst David Sparks. Five Albany officers were arrested and charged in connection with alleged misuse of the technology, per WIRED.

Sandy Springs Police Department showed up in a 2020 Flock video about catching porch pirates. Last year, a Sandy Springs officer was terminated following an internal investigation into alleged misuse of the system.

Baytown Police Department, near Houston, appeared in a 2025 Flock video about responding to a carjacking. Last week, a Baytown officer resigned amid ongoing investigations into alleged misuse of the technology.

Four departments. Four Flock promotional videos. Four separate misuse scandals.

The Problem Isn't Contained to Georgia

WIRED notes that ALPR misuse allegations have surfaced well beyond these four agencies, including in Kansas, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Within Georgia alone, sheriff's offices in Coweta County, Cherokee County, Habersham County, and Richmond County have also faced misuse allegations.

That's a lot of smoke for a technology company that markets itself as a public safety solution with built-in accountability.

Flock's Defense

Flock spokesperson Paris Lewbel gave WIRED a statement on the matter. "Misuse was identified and addressed," Lewbel said. He argued that catching bad actors is a feature, not a bug.

"That is exactly why accountability tools and internal review processes exist," Lewbel said. "When improper use is detected, agencies can investigate, take action, and hold individuals accountable. That should be viewed as evidence that oversight mechanisms are working, not as a sign that the entire department or city should be broadly condemned."

No surveillance tool, no database, no piece of government technology is immune from human misuse. If Flock's system flagged the problems and departments acted, fired, arrested, and disciplined people, that's the system functioning as designed.

But the Pattern Still Matters

Flock's defense runs into trouble when examined closely. These aren't random departments that happened to have bad apples. These are departments Flock hand-picked to hold up as models for the rest of the country. If misuse happened at the agencies Flock chose to showcase as its best customers, what's happening at the thousands of agencies Flock never bothered to feature?

License plate readers track where every car goes, every day, building a rolling database of movement that most Americans never agreed to and can't opt out of. That's a massive amount of power sitting in a private company's database, accessible to local police with varying levels of training and oversight.

Conservatives who care about limited government and individual liberty should be just as uneasy about this as anyone on the left worried about surveillance overreach. A cop pulling plate data to stalk an ex-girlfriend or track a personal enemy isn't a partisan issue. It's a straightforward abuse-of-power problem, and it's exactly the kind of unchecked government capability the Fourth Amendment was designed to guard against.

What's Actually Unresolved

WIRED's reporting documents disciplinary actions and criminal charges, but it doesn't establish how systemic the underlying misuse problem is across Flock's full customer base, which numbers in the thousands of agencies nationwide. No comprehensive audit of ALPR misuse rates across all Flock-equipped departments has been cited by WIRED or any other outlet reviewed here.

Individual scandals get caught and punished, which is good. But nobody has produced hard numbers on how often misuse happens versus how often it gets caught. Until an independent audit or legislative inquiry answers that question, the debate over ALPR technology will keep running on anecdotes, not data. Georgia lawmakers, or Congress, would be the logical body to demand that accounting.