🔍 Every Documented Misuse of ALPR and Flock Cameras

How many ALPR cameras are in use in the US?

No official count exists. Senator Ron Wyden’s November 2025 letter to the FTC said Flock reportedly contracts with over 5,000 police departments. It said Flock’s cameras generate and store billions of vehicle scans each month Wyden letter to FTC (3 Nov 2025). Flock’s own website did not publish a camera or customer count when we checked on 11 October 2026. What those scans contain is clearer. In 2020 California’s State Auditor looked at the 320 million plate images stored by the Los Angeles Police Department. It found 99.9 percent were of vehicles not on a hot list (a list of plates police are looking for) California State Auditor, report 2019-118 (13 Feb 2020).

1. Do police officers use ALPRs to stalk people?

The most-documented category, and the one that recurs across every vendor and jurisdiction. IJ attorney Michael Soyfer, who represents residents suing San Jose and Norfolk: "The fundamental problem with these systems is that they place private information about people's movements over time in the hands of every officer… that predictably allows officers to abuse their access to these systems for things like stalking romantic partners."

A note on what this table is: allegations, charges and convictions are not the same thing, and the outcome column says which is which. Several officers resigned or retired with no prosecution at all. Idaho's Attorney General found insufficient evidence to prove a crime by Jerome County's sheriff.

2. The film-set case: Lamar Roman

Worth telling in full, because it shows how many systems one impulse can chain together. Lamar Roman, a sheriff’s deputy in the Florida Keys, met a woman while working on the set of the Apple TV+ show Bad Monkey. 404 Media reports he was catcalling her and pressing her for her full name and Instagram details. 404 Media (6 Jul 2026)

According to police records, he saw the woman as a “shiny thing” and knew that tracking her was illegal. 404 Media (6 Jul 2026) He was fired and arrested in March 2026 for misuse of law-enforcement computers. Local10 (10 Mar 2026) In August, court documents showed a deal with prosecutors: the charges will be dropped if he completes a pretrial intervention programme. Local10 (11 Aug 2026)

3. Did Flock employees watch cameras in children's spaces?

Public records obtained by Dunwoody, Georgia resident Jason Hunyar showed Flock Safety employees viewing cameras in children's spaces at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta. The centre shares cameras with Dunwoody police. On 23 July 2025, Flock business development manager Randy Gluck viewed three of its cameras, including "Gym Mendel – 1" and "Main Pool Right." On 30 September 2025, Flock vice president Bob Carter viewed the "Gymnastics" camera. Atlanta Press Collective (14 Apr 2026)

Flock apologised to the centre. Mayor Lynn Deutsch said she was "very frustrated and angry," and that "Flock will no longer use Dunwoody for demonstration projects." Atlanta Press Collective (14 Apr 2026); Rough Draft Atlanta (14 Apr 2026) CEO Garrett Langley later wrote that the choice to use the centre "was a poor one on our part." IPVM (6 May 2026) On 13 April 2026 the city council approved a new Flock agreement anyway, with a ban on demonstrations. Rough Draft Atlanta (14 Apr 2026)

4. Johnson County, Texas: 83,345 cameras to find one woman

Reported by 404 Media in May 2025; records later obtained by EFF filled in what the first story couldn't. Deputies ran two searches under a single case number. The lead detective described the case as a "death investigation" of a "non-viable fetus". 404 Media (29 May 2025); EFF (7 Oct 2025)

Figures: EFF (7 Oct 2025). 404 Media and EFF's first story (May 2025) reported “more than 83,000” cameras; EFF's later records give the exact counts above.

Sheriff Adam King told 404 Media the family "was worried that she was going to bleed to death." EFF's records complicate that account. Investigators collected the evidence her partner had gathered and say they consulted the district attorney's office. They were told she could not be charged. The abortion had occurred more than two weeks before deputies were called. EFF (7 Oct 2025) The networks searched included cameras in states where abortion is legal, Washington and Illinois. Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said Mount Prospect police had violated state law by sharing plate data with the Texas sheriff. AP via WDIV (12 Jun 2025)

The ending is rarely reported: the woman later came to the sheriff's office herself — to report that the partner who had reported her abortion had assaulted her at gunpoint. He was charged. Sheriff King was later arrested and indicted on felony counts in an unrelated sexual harassment and whistleblower case, and charged with aggravated perjury. EFF (7 Oct 2025)

5. Can an ALPR misread get you stopped at gunpoint?

IJ documented at least 27 cases since 2018 — most since 2023 — of innocent motorists stopped, detained at gunpoint or jailed because of ALPR error. In nearly two-thirds, officers didn't realise until after they'd drawn their guns. IJ (1 Jul 2026, updated 20 Jul)

6. Is ALPR data used for immigration enforcement?

• The "side door": local and state police ran more than 4,000 nation- and statewide lookups in Flock’s system, often for immigration-related reasons or at federal request. ICE had no formal contract for the tool. 404 Media (27 May 2025)
• Washington: At least eight Washington agencies enabled direct, one-to-one sharing with Border Patrol in 2025. Border Patrol also had apparent "back door" access to at least ten more departments’ networks that had not approved it. UW Center for Human Rights (2025)
• The ICE hotlist: Agencies can load ICE’s NCIC Immigration Violator File as a Flock hotlist. It includes plates tied to administrative warrants "issued by ICE agents without judicial review." Sparks PD (NV) uses it while listing immigration enforcement as a prohibited use, EFF says. EFF (25 Jun 2026)
• Motorola: The ACLU says Motorola has a contract with ICE, through Thomson Reuters, that lets the agency search Motorola’s plate database directly. ACLU (25 Aug 2026)

7. "Hehe": the audit logs

Flock requires a reason for each search. It is a free-text box. Logs reviewed by EFF show Lake County, Indiana sheriff’s employees searching for "LMAO" in July 2025. Richmond, California police employees ran several searches for "Hehe" in November 2024; the department said those officers were "counseled." EFF (14 Sep 2026) An earlier EFF analysis of 11.4 million Flock searches found more than 14% gave only the word "investigation" ACLU (31 Oct 2025). In Wisconsin, "investigation" with no other context was Milwaukee police’s fifth most common search reason, used over 1,000 times Wisconsin Examiner (Aug 2025).

California's State Auditor examined four agencies in 2020: Fresno PD, LAPD, Marin County SO and Sacramento County SO. It found "the agencies have conducted little to no auditing and monitoring." Their policies were missing or deficient, and three of the four shared images widely. It also cited ACLU concerns that officers "could inappropriately monitor the movements of individuals such as ex‑spouses." California State Auditor, report 2019-118 (13 Feb 2020)

Can a city charge $2.3 million for Flock records?

A Texas city tried. In late August 2026 a requester for the Texas Privacy Coalition, an anti-surveillance group, asked North Richland Hills for its communications about Flock errors, misuse and effectiveness. The city quoted $2.3 million, payable up front: labour at $15 an hour to search about a terabyte of communications, or “more than 14 years of work”. The city said the figure reflects messages “legally required to be reviewed”, called it “understandably shocking”, and said a narrowed request should cost “significantly less”. Texas Tribune (5 Oct 2026)

Other Texas agencies answered similar requests very differently. Sealy released more than 400,000 pages free. Harris County’s sheriff quoted a TV station $121,000. Irving reportedly asked $70,000 for records Carrollton gave free. The Department of Public Safety asked the Attorney General to let it withhold search data it had released before. Texas Tribune (5 Oct 2026)

Is that legal in Texas? A huge estimate is not illegal by itself. Texas sets the rate and the process, not a ceiling. But several rules limit what can go into it:

• No hour cap, but a free-time floor. Texas does not limit how many hours an agency may bill. §552.275 works the other way: an agency may set a free allowance per requester of at least 15 hours a month or 36 hours a year, then charge after that. News gatherers, elected officials and some legal-aid groups are exempt from that section. Gov’t Code §552.275
• Labour is chargeable on larger requests. For 50 pages or fewer of paper records, labour can be charged only if the records are in separate buildings or remote storage. Gov’t Code §552.261 The standard labour rate is $15 an hour. FOI Foundation of Texas
• Lawyer review time is not chargeable. The Attorney General’s rules say a labour charge “shall not be recovered for any time spent by an attorney” deciding whether exceptions apply. Preparing a ruling request is not chargeable either. Time spent redacting confidential information can be charged. Texas Attorney General cost training (1 TAC §70.3(d)) So the key question is how much of the $2.3 million is lawyers deciding what to withhold.
• The estimate has rules. Over $40, the agency must give a free, itemized estimate before it starts. The requester has 10 business days to accept, narrow the request, or complain to the Attorney General; silence withdraws the request. Final charges cannot exceed the estimate by more than 20% without an update. Agencies with 16 or more staff may demand a deposit when charges reach $100. 1 Tex. Admin. Code §70.7
• Overcharges can cost the agency triple. A requester can complain in writing to the Attorney General, who sets the proper charge. If someone paid an overcharge and the agency did not act in good faith, they can recover three times the overcharge. Gov’t Code §552.269

If you get a quote like this: ask for hours by task, ask how much is attorney review, ask whether the records can be keyword-searched instead of read one by one, offer to inspect instead of buying copies, and narrow by date range and search terms. Rules differ in other states. This is general information, not legal advice. Track deadlines with our Records Request Tracker.

8. How secure are ALPR cameras?

9. What Flock told the customers

The ACLU's July 2026 report documented a pattern of misrepresentation ACLU (2 Jul 2026):

• Oshkosh, WI: Flock's chief information security officer denied the system could "create a pattern or heat map of an individual's movement." The council approved the contract that night, learned the statement was false, and revoked it the next day. Flock later admitted its heat maps show a vehicle's captured locations for up to a month. The company called its error "one small misconception."
• Loveland, CO: Flock said federal agencies no longer had access and the CEO said there were no federal contracts — then admitted CBP/DHS pilots. CEO: "We clearly communicated poorly."
• The ACLU partnership that never existed: A Flock executive claimed on social media that the company "partnered with the ACLU of New Mexico." In 2021 Flock told Urbana, Illinois it had "worked with groups like the ACLU." The ACLU says neither it nor any affiliate has "ever partnered with Flock Safety."
• Chetek, WI: Not a vendor case, but the same gap. The police chief put up two Flock cameras in late May 2026. The mayor said: "He put them up without informing me or any of the council." The chief said he did not believe he needed elected officials’ approval; the mayor said the purchase was within the department’s operating budget. WEAU (20 Jul 2026) In late August the council voted 3–1 to bag the cameras. Chetek Alert (2 Sep 2026)

10. The part nobody talks about: the private market

Focusing on Flock understates this considerably. Motorola Solutions runs Vigilant Solutions’ law-enforcement network and a commercial unit, Digital Recognition Network (DRN). DRN makes deals for tow trucks and other fleet vehicles to carry cameras. It sells its data for commercial purposes, marketed to private companies including auto financers and insurers; police can buy access for an extra charge. The ACLU says the commercial network is amassing billions of plate reads, with a claimed 500 million a month. It also says Motorola has a contract with ICE, through Thomson Reuters, that lets the agency search the database directly. ACLU (25 Aug 2026)

And the federal layer predates all of it. The DEA has run a licence plate reader programme since 2008. Records the ACLU obtained under FOIA showed over 343 million records in its database. The DEA targets roadways it believes are commonly used for contraband transport, and receives data from local, state and tribal agencies. A February 2014 Washington Post headline said DHS had cancelled its "national license-plate tracking plan." The ACLU notes that all that ended was one ICE solicitation; the national programme already existed. ACLU of Texas (26 Jan 2015)

11. What the courts and legislatures did

12. Have critics of ALPR cameras faced retaliation?

Yes, in a small number of documented cases, and no court has yet ruled any of them unlawful. We found ten episodes since February 2025. In each, someone who criticised, mapped or reported on Flock cameras faced a citation, stop, ban, monitoring, takedown demand, legal threat or alleged plate search. The clearest is Springfield, Missouri, where two people were ticketed at a council meeting in September 2026. Many entries rest on one side’s account, so the response given by police, officials or Flock is in the last column.

What we left out. Prosecutions for damaging or destroying cameras are not here, because they are not about speech. Nor are meetings where comment was limited but no one was sanctioned. In Madison County, North Carolina, the board chair told residents: “You will not speak on Flock tonight.” He then let one chosen speaker talk for seven minutes. 404 Media (12 Jun 2026)

Do ALPRs actually solve crimes?

A catalogue that only points one way isn't evidence. Here is the strongest honest case for ALPRs, and it is not weak.

They work. ALPRs demonstrably recover stolen vehicles, resolve AMBER Alerts and generate homicide leads that would otherwise go cold. Under-resourced departments get investigative reach they could not otherwise afford. The overwhelming majority of searches are routine and legitimate, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise from a list of the exceptions. The audit logs do catch abuse — several cases above were found exactly that way, which is an argument for the system working as intended, not against it. And Flock has responded to pressure: it apologised over the Dunwoody demos and announced new safeguards in August 2026.

Where that argument runs out. "Mostly used well" is not the standard we apply to mass surveillance of people suspected of nothing — and in Los Angeles 99.9% of stored images were of cars not on any hot list. The 82 stalking cases on IJ’s list are not a failure of the technology; they are what happens when you place every resident's movement history in the hands of every officer with a login and check it with a free-text box. The 27 wrongful stops IJ counted are not bugs either — several were the system doing precisely what it was built to do. And the vendor statistics deserve the same scepticism as everything else: Flock's claim that its system helps solve more than one million crimes a year (13 August 2026 post) is the company's own figure, not an independent peer-reviewed study.

Both things are true at once. The technology solves real crimes, and at this scale, with this oversight, abuse is not a risk but a certainty. A serious argument has to carry both — which is what the 277 local governments in IJ’s cancellation database (IJ, as of 15 Oct 2026) appear to have concluded on the evidence.

How can I check if my plate was scanned?

July 2026: the accountability wave accelerates

The pattern this page documents did not slow down. In the span of a single month, more officers were fired, the company's credibility took further hits, and its CEO reversed a notorious insult — all verifiable in mainstream reporting.

The ACLU's credibility case

On 2 July 2026 the ACLU published a detailed account arguing that Flock repeatedly misled city councils, police departments, and the public, and that "reputable governments should not do business with disreputable companies." ACLU (2 Jul 2026) The specifics:

• Federal data sharing. Flock told a Colorado police chief (Loveland) and the press that federal agencies had no access and that federal data-sharing was a non-issue because Flock had no federal contracts. After contradictory information surfaced, the company admitted it did hold contracts with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Homeland Security (DHS) for pilots giving those agencies direct access. "We clearly communicated poorly," the CEO said, conceding Flock's public statements "inadvertently provided inaccurate information."
• Immigration access. Even without federal contracts, cooperating police were regularly sharing Flock data and search results with ICE and CBP. Flock's CEO ultimately admitted the system was used for immigration enforcement but argued that it was "not Flock's problem."
• Heat maps. At an Oshkosh, Wisconsin council meeting, Flock's own security officer told the council its system didn't create vehicle heat maps revealing where a car had driven over time. Flock later admitted that it does (see section 9).

August 2026: a national investigation, and a new frontier

If July was a wave, August was the reckoning — a major newspaper investigation put a number on the pattern this page has tracked case by case, and a leaked pitch revealed where the network wants to go next.

Still moving through the courts. Many of the newest cases are pending rather than resolved, and the count keeps climbing — Newsweek’s round-up named 12 states. Among those in active prosecution or open investigation as of mid-August 2026: Elizabeth Snowman (Mooresville, NC — prosecution pending; at least 10 other cases under review), Christopher Goodson (Haines City, FL — 717 queries on his estranged wife), Brandon Sellers (Milledgeville, GA — fired and charged), Emily Pacheco (New Bedford, MA — termination recommended Sept 3, alongside Sgt. James Marinelli), and Jaquarius Yarbrough (Richmond County, GA — 1,639 searches; more colleagues charged since), all listed in the table above. Departments are also finding it in clusters: the Savannah, GA police department fired six employees over Flock misuse on Aug 7 and asked the GBI to investigate — four (three officers and a community service specialist) were arrested on Aug 21, and one officer is accused of giving an outside agency unauthorised access; that agency is also part of the GBI investigation. WTOC (24 Aug 2026) Two Wisconsin cases already in this file resolved this summer: Josue Ayala pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour and drew 12 months’ probation, and Cristian Morales was sentenced Aug 17 to six months in jail followed by three years of probation. The pattern is no longer isolated incidents — it is a steady docket.

The rideshare pitch: 350,000 cars as mobile cameras

The most consequential August development wasn’t an arrest — it was a plan. A Flock presentation prepared for the Georgia Attorney General’s office, obtained through a public-records request by Dunwoody resident Jason Hunyar and reported by 404 Media, revealed that Flock pitched turning roughly 350,000 Uber, Lyft, and delivery vehicles into mobile license plate readers. The mechanism: a partnership with dashcam maker Nexar, whose cameras are already mounted in hundreds of thousands of gig-driver windshields. Every time a driver stopped at a light or dropped off an order, the dashcam would passively log the plate, make, model, and color of surrounding vehicles — feeding Flock’s network. The deck’s own words: “350k Uber/Lyft and other delivery service devices.”

Flock told 404 Media the Nexar partnership was never executed — and that qualifier matters, so we state it plainly. But two things make this more than a shelved idea. First, intent and scale: the company put the plan in writing and pitched it to a state attorney general, so it was far enough along to sell to law enforcement as a product. Second, the consent gap: nothing in the reporting indicates Uber, Lyft, or the drivers themselves would have known their vehicles were feeding a police-accessible network — a rider or driver who bought a Nexar cam as a crash witness would have become an unwitting surveillance node.

It also fits a documented Flock pattern: push a boundary, retreat under criticism, keep the blueprint. In 2025 the company planned to use data from known breaches in Nova, its people-search tool. It then dropped that plan after internal pressure and 404 Media’s reporting. The rideshare pitch belongs in the same lineage as device-signature tracking: the network keeps looking for new surfaces to grow onto, and the debate is always after the capability is built, never before.

Late August–September 2026: the audits start finding them

Flock announced in August that its audit tooling would become mandatory. In the weeks that followed, the table above filled quickly: officers and employees in several states were fired, arrested, indicted or resigned over ALPR misuse. Many of these cases were found by the agencies’ own audits rather than by a victim.

Georgia: the GBI docket

Georgia alone produced more than a dozen. In Richmond County the arrest of Deputy Jaquarius Yarbrough in June was followed by three more on July 20 Augusta Press (21 Jul 2026). IJ lists two more, Investigator Sean Morrow and Deputy Jose Ferrer, as fired and charged in September IJ abuse database (read 16 Oct 2026). Hall County saw four deputies resign in a single week during an investigation into unauthorised Flock searches. The GBI also arrested a former Covington officer, a former police 911 director in Paulding County, a Clayton County deputy, a Hahira officer, Habersham County’s second deputy in a month, Cherokee County’s fourth, and a Department of Corrections special agent. DeKalb County suspended eight officers; the department audits use every two weeks, and its officers ran 53,276 searches from 1 January to 24 July. Savannah’s six firings led to four arrests, with one officer accused of giving an outside agency unauthorised access.

Everywhere else

The largest single case is Lufkin, Texas, where an 11-year officer was indicted on 100 felony counts of misuse of official information for searching eleven people over eighteen months; the department suspended Flock use. A Jackson County, Indiana deputy searched one plate 2,055 times, logging every query as “City Planning/Traffic Analysis”. Colleton County, South Carolina fired two lieutenants in eleven days — one had run 2,700 unauthorised searches in a year, including on himself and fellow deputies — and revoked individual deputy access entirely. A Jefferson Parish deputy accused of more than 3,200 searches of his ex-fiancée’s plate, who admitted running it, was fired; no charges were announced, and she declined to file a complaint; a Brentwood, Missouri officer who tracked his ex-wife during their divorce faced no charge at all because investigators determined no crime was committed under Missouri law — a gap several states share. Stow, Massachusetts did what few have: when an officer resigned ahead of a termination hearing, the town cancelled Flock and pulled its cameras. In Henrico County, Virginia, ten fire marshals were found to hold Flock access although state law, in force since July 2025, does not allow them to use it (the county said their use was consistent with the statute); it was revoked Aug 18. The county attorney said Flock evidence in five arson cases will not be admissible when they reach trial.

What the records requests turned up

The month’s most consequential findings came from residents filing public-records requests, not from oversight bodies. In Pflugerville, Texas, a public-records request showed more than 450 agencies had tapped into the city’s cameras against 80 approved, according to a council member; city leaders cut ties with Flock. In Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the mayor disclosed that a Flock sales representative had emailed the city’s engineering department offering to sell it five years of speed and vehicle-movement data captured by Flock cameras — tracking the mayor said Flock never told the city about. Police Chief Kurt Zempel believes the undisclosed collection undermines his trust in the system, FOX6 reported; Flock was on the council agenda for Sept 8. In Washington State, one resident’s 53 Flock records requests have produced more than $300,000 in settlements from 15 jurisdictions that failed to respond lawfully. And Millcreek, Utah found and removed a Flock camera on city property that neither it nor its police had authorised; the installer is unknown.

Contracts ended, funding pulled

Beyond Pflugerville and Stow: Hopkinton, MA terminated on the grounds the contract was unlawful under Massachusetts law; Asheville, NC voted 5–2, Christiansburg, VA 6–0, Fort Wayne, IN unanimously; St. Charles County, MO bagged all 28 cameras after a civilian employee’s searches were flagged. Most significantly, on Aug 28 Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered all state agencies to pause funding for Flock cameras — a state agency had devoted at least $30 million to the network, and DPS was installing almost 1,200 cameras under a three-year, $15.9 million contract.

Oversight, litigation and the reporting

On Aug 26, Senator Josh Hawley, chairing the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, opened an investigation into Flock with documents due Sept 8, citing among other things a Florida woman jailed 13 days on a Flock error and the LAPD’s 161 false stolen-vehicle flags; on Sept 3 he extended it to Axon, Motorola Solutions and Verkada. A bipartisan House bill, the “Flock-Off Act”, to bar federal funding for ALPRs except near borders and for tolling, was introduced the same week. Police1 (4 Sep 2026) On Aug 25 a Dahlonega resident filed a federal class action against Flock in the Northern District of Georgia. And 404 Media added five documents to the record in as many weeks: seven state fusion centers monitoring anti-Flock social-media accounts; the National Park Service running Flock at Yosemite and Golden Gate over rangers’ objections; Flock’s CEO telling police the Johnson County abortion-search story was “entirely false” (404 Media’s rebuttal); the sheriff’s report on that search turning out to have been drafted with Axon’s Draft One AI; and a Flock webinar teaching police to use FlockOS to monitor the No Kings protests. A Wisconsin criminal complaint also showed deputies using Flock to track a man’s trips to Michigan as pretext for a marijuana stop.

The one wrongful stop added this period: on Aug 6, Brookfield, Wisconsin officers stopped a driver and her passenger at gunpoint on I-94 after Milwaukee police failed to remove a wanted-vehicle alert tied to a homicide. They were let go once Milwaukee police said it no longer needed the car or its occupants.

October 2026 update: a criminal charge, a fake police department, and the federal funnel

The September record moves the misuse story past “officers fired” in three directions at once: a prosecutor filed criminal charges over ALPR queries, a vendor-run account turned out to be searching real cameras for real people, and documents showed local data flowing into a federal aggregation programme most of the contributing cities had never discussed in public.

Chesterfield County, Virginia: charges, not just dismissal

On 2 October 2026 Chesterfield County police announced that Rebekkah Robinson, a civilian intelligence investigator with the department, had been charged with two counts of improper use of an ALPR system and two counts of computer invasion of privacy, all Class 1 misdemeanours, after co-workers reported concerns to leadership on 27 August. VPM. Most entries on this page end in resignation or firing; a filed criminal charge against a named analyst is a different kind of precedent, and worth watching through disposition. It also had an immediate consequence next door: on 6 October Henrico County said it was terminating its Flock contract, citing “privacy concerns”; a county supervisor said the contract would end within seven days. VPM reported the Chesterfield charge alongside, and Richmond's mayor said the city would reconsider its own contract. Henrico had installed more than 120 readers and had paid about $1 million since November 2022. County Manager John Vithoulkas: “Flock may not be the tool that we need to put a county's credibility behind.” VPM

“Flock City PD”: a vendor account searching live cameras

404 Media reported on 17 September that Flock had created a fake police department, “Flock City PD”. During sales demonstrations it used the account to search real cameras for people holding signs, “crowds” and people wearing masks. Flock says the searches tested its content safeguards. 404 Media (17 Sep 2026) The significance is structural rather than anecdotal: every audit regime discussed on this page assumes the searchers are sworn officers at identifiable agencies, answerable to a chief and a records law. An account belonging to the vendor sits outside all three.

Two weeks earlier, on 2 September, 404 Media reported Texas police using AI to draft a report about a Flock search for a woman who had obtained an abortion 404 Media (2 Sep 2026). Newburgh, New York’s published audit logs include a 2025 Texas police search for a “female” who “had an abortion”; on 28 September its council voted to end its contract.

On 14 September the same outlet reported an EFF review of search logs in which officers had entered reasons including “LMAO,” “IDK,” “Hehe” and “asdfg.” 404 Media (14 Sep 2026); EFF (14 Sep 2026)

The camera itself was taken apart

On 16 September 404 Media reported that hackers physically removed a Flock camera and extracted a near-complete copy of its software and data, revealing how the system tracks vehicles and people, and said they intended to publish instructions. 404 Media. The article is paywalled beyond the opening, and we have not seen Flock’s response; treat the people-tracking characterisation as the reporters’ reading of the extracted software rather than a confirmed product capability until the detail is public.

Where the data actually goes: HIDTA

On 30 September 404 Media published FOIA’d memoranda of understanding, a December 2024 DEA privacy impact assessment and Houston HIDTA contracts showing local ALPR data — from both Flock and Axon — being aggregated into federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area servers. Georgia cities had to sign a HIDTA MOU to place ALPRs in state rights-of-way at all: Brunswick could not deploy Axon cameras without one. Houston HIDTA paid $306,800 to build a cross-vendor searchable plate database and runs the national login portal. 404 Media. This is the mechanism behind a question this page keeps running into: how a query entered in one state reaches a database built in another.

San Francisco: a feature nobody at the department switched on

The San Francisco Human Rights Commission reported on 28 September that federal agencies including ICE had accessed SFPD Flock data hundreds of times, and that Flock enabled a “Nationwide Lookup” feature without SFPD’s knowledge. The commission found no sanctuary-law violation, but concluded that “SFPD’s contractor allowed city resources to be utilized to arguably assist in enforcement of federal immigration law,” and recommended 30-day deletion and that SFPD rather than Flock control the lookup setting. Mission Local.

Chico, California: ICE access, and the logs that went missing

The clearest documented ICE case of the year, reported throughout by ChicoSol, which obtained the records:

• 29 May – 8 July 2026 — ICE used Chico’s ALPR network to track six vehicles.
• 8 July — Chico PD shut off federal and out-of-state sharing. The transaction logs were lost for what the report calls “unknown technical reasons”. The department manually restored 40 days of ICE access logs; retrieving one day of an agency’s queries took about 30 minutes.
• 18 September — Chico PD released a 19-page audit confirming both the access and the log loss, while asserting it is “unquestionably in compliance with SB 34.” ChicoSol
• 21 September — in special session the city council voted 4–3 to buy a $6,000 one-year Motorola software subscription to try to extend auditing of past sharing, ordered a legal review of the sharing MOU, and authorised planning a community forum. A citizen-led police oversight committee proposal failed; the audit still relies on the police department’s own use of the Motorola tool. ChicoSol

The programme is still running. Chico PD can still query out-of-state and federal data; outside agencies can no longer query Chico’s. The lesson for anyone filing a records request is in the second bullet: an audit log is only evidence while it exists. ChicoSol (18 Sep 2026)

How many more cases are there? 73 found in local news

Many more than the table above. On 20 October 2026 we searched local news and official releases for ALPR misuse cases not yet on this page. We found 67 more, involving about 90 people, and added 2 more on 21 October, 1 on 22 October and 3 on 23 October, for 73. Georgia accounts for 20 of them, Illinois 9, Texas 8 and Ohio 7. The Institute for Justice’s abuse database lists 280 incidents in total.

These are allegations unless the outcome says convicted or sentenced. Firings and resignations are not findings of guilt. We name officers as the reports name them; civilian staff are described by role, and victims are never named. Flock is the system unless the row says otherwise.

Updates on cases already listed

• Zachary Klein (Lufkin, TX) was sentenced to five years in prison on 30 September 2026 after pleading guilty to 100 felony counts; the DA said he ran more than 25,000 improper searches Money Talks News (7 Oct 2026).
• Jeremy Harrison (Joliet, IL) is charged with computer tampering and official misconduct and is due in court on 17 November Chicago Sun-Times (7 Oct 2026).
• Daniel Little (Brunswick County, NC) was indicted on six counts of misusing an ALPR system WECT (8 Oct 2026).
• Josue Ayala (Milwaukee) received probation Wisconsin Examiner (8 Oct 2026).

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See also: DeFlock’s ALPR map (cameras near you) · License-Plate Readers and the 2026 Midterms.