Flock Safety's CEO Apologises After Cops Used Its Cameras to Stalk Civilians

Key points

• Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley issued a public apology on Thursday over documented cases of police officers misusing the company's surveillance data.
• A Massachusetts police officer faces accusations of using Flock cameras to track a former girlfriend.
• Flock Safety is rolling out changes to its systems in response to the backlash.
• The incidents raise questions about who watches the watchmen when powerful tracking tools land in the wrong hands.

Flock Safety sells a network of roadside cameras that read licence plates, meaning they record which car passed which street corner and at what time. Thousands of police departments across the United States pay to access that data. The pitch is crime-solving. The problem, as CEO Garrett Langley admitted Thursday, is that some officers have used it for something else entirely.

Langley apologised publicly for cases where Flock's data was misused by law enforcement officers. He did not name individuals, but the timing followed CBS News Boston's report on a Massachusetts officer accused of using the cameras to monitor an ex-girlfriend, essentially turning a crime-fighting tool into a personal stalking device.

What exactly is Flock Safety, and how does its system work?

Flock Safety makes automated licence-plate recognition cameras, small devices bolted to poles that photograph every passing vehicle and log its plate, location, and timestamp in a searchable database. Officers can query that database to find where a car has been.

That is genuinely useful for tracking stolen vehicles. It is also, as this case illustrates, a detailed map of a person's daily movements.

The company now operates in hundreds of cities. Its cameras are often installed in private neighbourhoods as well as on public roads, which means the data pool runs deeper than most people realise.

What is Flock Safety changing?

Langley outlined several system-level changes during his public statement, though the company has not published full technical specifications yet. The intent, he said, is to add safeguards that make it harder for individual officers to run unauthorised searches.

The specifics matter enormously here. A lookup audit log, meaning a record of every search an officer runs and why, is the minimum standard privacy advocates have called for. Whether Flock's new measures meet that bar is still unclear.

Should ordinary people be concerned?

Yes, and not only people with ex-partners in law enforcement. If you drive a car, Flock cameras in your area are probably already logging your movements. That data sits in a private company's system, accessible to any officer with credentials.

The Massachusetts case is a reminder that access controls only work if someone is checking them. Right now, oversight varies wildly from one police department to the next.

If you think you may be a victim of stalking by someone with access to law-enforcement databases, contact a domestic-violence support organisation. They are increasingly familiar with this type of technology-assisted tracking. Document everything: odd coincidences in timing, unexpected appearances, any messages that hint at knowledge of your location.

Common questions

Can I find out if a Flock camera has tracked my car?

Generally, no. There is no public-facing lookup tool, and most departments do not release individual query logs without a formal legal request such as a freedom-of-information filing.

Is using police databases for personal stalking a crime?

In most US states, yes. Unauthorised access to law-enforcement systems and using official resources for personal purposes each carry their own potential charges, separate from any stalking laws that may also apply.