Customs and Border Protection tapped 80,000 Flock cameras last year — police weren’t kept in the loop

Wherever Marci Bakely went, her ex-boyfriend seemed to know. When the Georgia single mother drove to the grocery store or a date, he often texted within minutes.

According to a Washington Post investigation, Bakely’s ex-boyfriend, Braselton Police Chief Michael Steffman, searched her license plates and those of her teenage daughter roughly 600 times through Flock Safety, a company that makes and operates networks of automated license plate readers, or ALPRs.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested Steffman in November 2025 on charges of stalking, harassment and misuse of an ALPR. He was found dead before trial.

Bakely’s case is not unique. The Post identified at least 50 officers accused of misusing ALPRs, including 26 who used Flock’s cameras to spy on current or former partners or people they hoped to meet. Its investigation has since identified at least 100 police department employees charged with or accused of misuse.

Flock says these people represent a tiny share of its more than 140,000 monthly users and that permanent audit logs help uncover misconduct.

But these abuses required no hacking or stolen credentials. Each user walked through the front door.

I’m a criminal procedure scholar and I direct a school devoted to forensics. I believe the controversy over ALPRs points to a defect in the surveillance system’s architecture, not just the criminality of some of its users.

A search engine for movements

Flock cameras capture a vehicle’s plate, location and distinguishing marks down to dents or a bumper sticker. AI can sort license plate photographs by date taken. Police departments across the network can then conduct searches without warrants or supervisory approval.

In September 2026, news outlets Wired and 404 Media analyzed data that hackers had copied from one Flock camera. About 21 days of logs contained roughly 50,200 vehicles and 1.6 million images. The software detected people and bicycles, and it even isolated an American flag patch on a motorcyclist’s saddlebag. Flock said it lacked enough........

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