Just a few days ago, we published a story about companies that own automated license plate readers and sell the data they collect, and how for-profit surveillance is about to expand so that the readers can also track your electronic signatures — from your phone to your wearable gadgets and even the infotainment hardware in your car. No plate? No problem, thanks to a product called SignalTrace. The name certainly leaves little room for imagination.
To make matters worse, 404 Media released two additional reports detailing police misuse of an existing, widely popular camera system called Flock. You may have heard about it; The company has contracted with state and local governments across the country to provide passive video surveillance of public spaces.
“Swarm connects communities, businesses, and public safety so incidents can be clearly understood and decisions can be made based on facts,” The company’s home page says.
It also states “Privacy First” and has a somewhat prominent relationship with Flock. Data Privacy Policies. It sounds friendly and transparent, right? Unfortunately, the herd track record on protecting that data (And Even its raw camera feed) is poor to say the least. Last month, independent journalists found that Flock exposed both personal information recorded by police and related search queries through multiple search engines.
That leaked data was collected into a searchable database called HeavyBeanFlockedWhere you can see for yourself if your license plate has been run through Flock’s database – and in some cases, why.
This may matter more than one thinks, because law enforcement is not exclusively using flocks to do their job. Many officers have been caught Using herd data to monitor both acquaintances and strangers. A Florida officer used Flock’s license plate lookups (among other things) to stalk his ex-girlfriend and her family over the course of several months in 2024; Another in Missouri conducted 542 “test” searches over the course of 10 months to monitor the whereabouts of both his wife’s car and a mysterious second vehicle.
A group called “Deflock Joplin” put together that timeline using HeavyBeanFlock; When the pattern was reported to Joplin PD, the allegations were duly investigated:
“In December of 2025, the Joplin Police Department became aware of a potential policy violation by one of its personnel regarding inappropriate use of departmental resources, specifically, the flocked license plate reader (LPR) system,” Joplin PD said in a statement. “An internal investigation was immediately initiated by the Joplin Police Department’s Office of Internal Affairs. The officer under investigation was immediately placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of our internal investigation.”
Don’t worry; This was not simply a paid leave, although the exact circumstances of his departure were not specified, with the officer “no longer employed by the City of Joplin.”
Flock told 404 Media in June that he was aware of 15 incidents of police abuse of his database – then he began taking credit for singling out the abusers.
“Flock also has 140,000 monthly active users, so relatively rare cases of abuse, while clearly wrong and terrible, are absolutely rare,” a Flock spokesperson told the outlet.
“Humans are fallible; unlike most tools society provides for law enforcement, Flock ensures that when our technology is misused, the evidence used to hold responsible parties accountable is present in our systems,” the spokesperson said. “We also encourage all of our customers to implement a usage policy, regular training, and our audit assistance tool, which proactively flags unintended use.”
In other words, Flock provides the necessary tools to properly monitor your system. Whether departments bother to maintain those tools, monitor their reports, or take action on any resulting information is completely out of the company’s hands.
What is the herd going to do? “Fire” a good customer for not using the product to the maximum extent possible? Imagine that version of capitalism; Pickup trucks, like honest politicians, will be as rare.
No matter where you live in the United States, there’s a good chance there’s flock (or something like it) Either in use or being tested somewhere near you. In the modern Internet of Things, you no longer need a license plate to track, Nor do you need to be in a car to be targeted..
Welcome to the future.
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