The US authorities have a powerful tool that reads license plates and allows them to reconstruct the movements of any vehicle. This technology, called Flock, has been key in solving hundreds of crimes, but it is also being used by some police officers to monitor and control their partners and ex-partners.
what has happened. They count in 404media the case of an agent from Orange City, California, who during the summer of 2024 consulted his ex-partner’s license plate 69 times in the system. In addition, he searched for his mother’s 24 times and his father’s 15 times. Using this data, the agent showed up where she was, but he was also harassing her with constant calls and had even put an AirTag in her wallet. He was accused of harassment and computer crimes and was sentenced to one day in prison and five years of probation.
It is not an isolated case. According to an Institute for Justice studyhas not been the only case in which an agent has used license plate readers to stalk their partners or ex-partners. They speak of at least 18 known cases in recent years, these are only those that have ended in a conviction, but it is believed that there will be many more that have not been detected. They cite several cases, from controlling their partners, their ex-partners, and their new partners, to the persecution of strangers, such as a police officer who tracked down and detained a woman he had met on a shoot because he liked her.
What is Flock and how does it work?. It is a “public safety technology” company that has a huge network of automatic license plate reading cameras. These cameras record all the cars that pass and a cloud platform stores them, later allowing all the movements of any vehicle to be reconstructed over time. The system also detects matches for warrants, missing persons, and stolen vehicles and issues alerts if a match is found.
Very effective, but. As we said, Flock has been key to solving many cases. According to the company itself, up to 700,000 crimes every year they are solved using their technology and defend that crimes that used to go unpunished, such as hit-and-runs, are now investigated and end in arrests. The problem is that A court order is not required to use the system.simply a username and password that any police officer has. Many agents document their searches with vague or false reasons to cover up improper use.
What Flock says. In statements to 404media, the company defends itself against the accusations by saying that it is aware of these cases, that they are a minority and that they came to light “thanks to the built-in transparency and accountability functions.” It is true that the audit functions have been useful in detecting some cases, as it is also true that there have been situations of harassment that have continued for years until they have been detected. Furthermore, it is very difficult to audit because the volume of searches is gigantic, so much so that they do not even fit in a single Excel (more than 1 million).
Have I been Flocked? That’s what it’s called independent website which was born as a response to this problem. Here citizens can enter their license plate and check if it has been searched on the platform by comparing it with leaked internal records. Flock has pushed for closure this platform, arguing that it allows doxxing to police and could put investigations at risk, but it has not succeeded.
Image | Jonathan Lim in Unsplash
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