Community Technology Investigation: 1
FLOCK / AUTOMATED LICENSE PLATE READERS
This is the broader research record behind the investigation. It includes sources that directly support published findings as well as material reviewed to test claims, challenge assumptions, understand the architecture, identify contradictions, and decide what required deeper verification.
Inclusion here does not mean we accepted every statement in a source as true. Sources were evaluated according to the particular claim they were being used to examine.
Government
7
sources
Flock Safety
16
sources
Independent Research
7
sources
External Technical
3
sources
Research sources
7 sources
California Department of Justice. “Attorney General Bonta Sues El Cajon for Illegally Sharing License Plate Data with Out-of-State Law Enforcement.”. Office of the Attorney General, 3 Oct. 2025. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed as a government enforcement source concerning cross-jurisdiction ALPR sharing and governance failure.
California State Auditor. “Automated License Plate Readers: To Better Protect Individuals’ Privacy, Law Enforcement Must Increase Its Safeguards for the Data It Collects.”. California State Auditor, 13 Feb. 2020. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for ALPR architecture, retention, access controls, auditing, privacy safeguards, and documented weaknesses in agency oversight.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation. “GBI Arrests Five Former Albany Police Department Officers for Misuse of a License Plate Reader.”. Georgia Bureau of Investigation, 6 July 2026. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for the sequence in which searches occurred before an internal Flock audit identified alleged non-law-enforcement use.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation. “GBI Arrests Conyers Police Department Employee for Misuse of a License Plate Reader System.”. Georgia Bureau of Investigation, 23 July 2026. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed as a primary government source concerning repeated ALPR access by an authorized institutional user before later audit and investigation.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation. “GBI Arrests Braselton Police Chief for Harassment and Stalking.”. Georgia Bureau of Investigation, 19 Nov. 2025. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed in evaluating insider-misuse risk and whether elevated institutional authority eliminates the possibility of abuse.
Illinois Secretary of State. “Giannoulias’ Audit Finds License Plate Reader Company in Violation of State Law.”. Illinois Secretary of State, 25 Aug. 2025. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed as independent government evidence concerning federal access, inadequate safeguards, and the difference between represented sharing controls and actual access.
Virginia State Crime Commission. “2025 Annual Report — Law Enforcement Use of Automatic License Plate Recognition Update.”. Virginia State Crime Commission, 2026. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for real-world ALPR sharing, access, retention, statutory controls, and statewide deployment practices.
Research sources
16 sources
Flock Safety. “Law Enforcement Access.”. Flock Safety Trust Center. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for Flock’s claims concerning search reasons, agency control, access restrictions, auditing, review, and network sharing.
Flock Safety. “Compliance Tools.”. Flock Safety Trust Center. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for current descriptions of role controls, safeguards, visibility, auditing, and technical compliance mechanisms.
Flock Safety. “Ensuring Local Compliance on Data Sharing.”. Flock Safety, 25 Aug. 2025. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed as a corrective vendor statement concerning federal access, previous representations, and subsequent policy or architectural changes.
Flock Safety. “Does Flock Share Data With ICE?”. Flock Safety, 6 Jan. 2026. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for federal-access claims, state-specific restrictions, offense categories, search requirements, sharing controls, and examples of pre-query blocking.
Flock Safety. “Data Privacy.”. Flock Safety Trust Center. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for Flock’s current claims about collection limits, retention, access controls, deletion, privacy safeguards, and misuse prevention.
Flock Safety. “Rights & Safeguards.”. Flock Safety Trust Center. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for claims that restrictions and misuse controls are built into system operation rather than existing only as external policy.
Flock Safety. “Privacy Policy.”. Flock Safety, 1 Aug. 2025. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for cloud/storage architecture, customer-data representations, retention, search justification, access, and audit claims.
Flock Safety. “Flock Evidence Policy.”. Flock Safety, 9 Jan. 2026. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for downloaded evidence, retention boundaries, authentication of older records, and information surviving beyond hosted retention.
Flock Safety. “Terms and Conditions.”. Flock Safety, 16 Feb. 2026. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed directly for Customer Data ownership, license rights, downloads during retention, derived outputs, and continuing contractual rights.
Flock Safety. “Flock’s Terms & Conditions Update: What Actually Changed.”. Flock Safety, 17 Feb. 2026. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed as Flock’s explanation of the 2026 contract changes and the permitted use of Customer Data.
Flock Safety. “API and Integrations Terms.”. Flock Safety, 13 Oct. 2025. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for formal pathways that allow information to leave the Flock environment and enter external systems.
Flock Safety. “Expanding API Access: Flock Safety Offers No Cost Core APIs to Law Enforcement.”. Flock Safety, 13 Feb. 2025. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for Flock’s broader integration strategy involving dispatch, records, evidence, mapping, VMS, and real-time public-safety systems.
Flock Safety. “Flock FreeForm Search.”. Flock Safety. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for natural-language video search, person search using visible characteristics, shared-camera searching, and integration of video with LPR evidence.
Flock Safety. “Frequently Asked Questions.”. Flock Safety. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for private-customer relationships, law-enforcement access, retention, vehicle classification, sharing, and customer-control claims.
Flock Safety. “Customers Own and Control Their Flock Data.”. Flock Safety, 27 July 2026. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed as the vendor’s public explanation of ownership, access, sharing, retention, and control.
Flock Safety. “Is Flock Mass Surveillance? Here’s What 30 Courts Decided.”. Flock Safety, 26 Feb. 2026. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for the point-in-time camera characterization and as a central source for testing component-level descriptions against network-level capability.
Research sources
7 sources
American Civil Liberties Union. “Surveillance Supporters Tout Police Audit Logs But They’re Not an Effective Check and Balance.”. American Civil Liberties Union, 31 Oct. 2025. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for large-scale audit-log analysis, generic search reasons, and the distinction between logging activity and validating investigative purpose.
American Civil Liberties Union. “Flock Safety Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police Departments, and Public Across the Country.”. American Civil Liberties Union, 2 July 2026. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed as an advocacy investigation identifying alleged discrepancies and directing the research toward independent verification of the strongest examples.
American Civil Liberties Union. “Municipalities: Beware of Changes in Flock’s Legal Terms if You’re Using or Considering License Plate Readers.”. American Civil Liberties Union, 16 Apr. 2026. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed as legal/advocacy analysis that identified the ownership and licensing issue later checked directly against Flock’s contract.
Electronic Frontier Foundation. “EFF’s Investigations Expose Flock Safety’s Surveillance Abuses: 2025 in Review.”. Electronic Frontier Foundation, 30 Dec. 2025. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed as a broad public-record research summary concerning actual search uses, oversight failures, and ALPR mission expansion.
Electronic Frontier Foundation. “How Cops Are Using Flock Safety’s ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists.”. Electronic Frontier Foundation, 20 Nov. 2025. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for analysis of more than 12 million searches from thousands of agencies and documented searches concerning political demonstrations.
Electronic Frontier Foundation. “License Plate Surveillance Logs Reveal Racist Policing Against Romani People.”. Electronic Frontier Foundation, 3 Nov. 2025. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for public-record evidence of ethnicity-related search terminology across numerous agencies.
Maass, Dave, and Rindala Alajaji. “More License Plate Reader Mission Creep: School Residency Verification, Background Checks, and Noise Complaints.”. Electronic Frontier Foundation, 26 May 2026. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for documented uses substantially broader than the serious-crime examples commonly emphasized in public justification.
Research sources
3 sources
Clearview AI. “Clearview AI 2.0.”. Clearview AI. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed to establish that an external facial-recognition platform accepts probe imagery and provides facial-search capability to law enforcement.
Clearview AI. “Behind the Badge: Law Enforcement Insider’s Journey & the Role in Shaping Facial Recognition Policy.”. Clearview AI, 5 Dec. 2023. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for the Still Image Extraction from Video workflow, which demonstrates that uploaded video can be processed to extract facial images for later searching.
Clearview AI. “Principles.”. Clearview AI. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.
Why it was reviewed
Reviewed for law-enforcement search requirements, documentation of search purpose, audit metadata, and the uploaded-image investigative workflow.
Need the narrower record?
Works Cited removes the broader investigative material and keeps only the sources directly relied upon in Findings 1–12.
Works Cited