Flock police stalking cases have put a hard edge on a familiar surveillance problem: officers authorized to search vehicle-location records allegedly using that access to follow romantic partners and ex-partners. The documented cases do not establish that Flock Safety built its system for stalking. They do show how a database meant for investigations can be repurposed when its users abuse their access.
CNN reported in July that the cases included Milwaukee officer Josue Ayala, whom internal-affairs detectives found had used Flock searches to locate a romantic partner 124 times and that person's former partner 55 times, according to a February criminal complaint. CNN said Ayala agreed to resign and plead guilty to attempted misconduct in public office under a deal reflected in court records.
The same report said detective Tehrangi Chapman, who had investigated Ayala, was later arrested. A criminal complaint said Chapman admitted using Flock to track two people and secretly placing a GPS device on one person's vehicle.
How do Flock police stalking cases happen?
Automated license-plate reader systems use fixed or vehicle-mounted cameras to photograph plates and other identifying features of passing vehicles, then store the results in a database. Police can get an alert when a vehicle on a hot list passes a camera, or search a particular plate to reconstruct recent recorded movements. Agencies can also share data with neighboring departments, CNN reported.
That search capability is useful only if access is controlled and reviewed. Flock, an Atlanta-based company, says it works with more than 5,000 law-enforcement agencies and operates more than 120,000 cameras across 49 states. Those are company figures reported by CNN, not an independent audit of the network.
CNN described the Milwaukee incidents as among at least two dozen cases in which officers had resigned or been arrested over alleged misuse of Flock's system to stalk romantic interests, citing an Institute for Justice tally. The nonprofit public-interest law firm, which challenges some ALPR networks in court, updated its own review on August 3 with 30 listed incidents involving Flock and other ALPR products. Its count should not be read as 30 Flock cases.
The Institute for Justice says its list likely understates the problem, while also noting that it excludes misuse not conclusively connected to romantic partners. It found that only a few of the cases it analyzed were first detected through internal investigations; most surfaced after alleged victims reported conduct as part of wider stalking complaints. That finding raises questions about how misuse is detected, without proving a systemwide failure of agency oversight.
What has Flock said about misuse?
Flock chief executive and co-founder Garrett Langley told CNN that the company launched an audit-assistance tool in June intended to flag abnormal activity for auditors. Milwaukee County deputy district attorney Matthew Torbenson said at Ayala's sentencing that the vast majority of officers use the technology appropriately. Neither statement supplies a public measurement of how well the new auditing tool catches improper searches.
There is also limited evidence on the systems' broader crime-fighting value. CNN reported that few studies have examined ALPR effectiveness overall, and that a recent study of Atlantic City police use produced mixed results that were difficult to separate from a nationwide decline in crime. The policy dispute, then, is not settled by the existence of the cameras. It turns on what searches are permitted, who reviews them, and whether misuse is found before a person has to discover they were being tracked.
This story draws on original reporting from Techdirt.
