Police Have Used License Plate Readers at Least 14x to Stalk Romantic Interests

JohnMakin

"at least" is doing a lot of work here. That's just what was analyzed. You have to assume the behavior is much more prevalent.

jmclnx

In other news, the Sun rises in the East. Nice it was highlighted but the big question, will something be done about this ? I think we all know the answer to this. The only surprise is "14 times", I would expect hundreds of times.

loteck

In my town, we have Flock. I request the audit logs that show how police are searching the Flock system. In November 2025 and prior, the logs were listed by USERID and I could independently correlate quantity of searches by USERID to detect unusual search behavior. This same methodology has been used to catch police stalking in at least one other city. In December 2025, Flock decided to "improve" its system. All searches on the audit log are now completely serialized, anonymized. This "improvement" came after 2025 turned out several cases of police stalking using Flock.

therobots927

Welcome to the panopticon, everyone! Law abiding citizens have nothing to fear. Keep drinking the kool-aid and don’t look behind the curtain.

virgil_disgr4ce

Is there a framework—any framework, however hypothetical—that actually makes police accountable and subject to the laws they supposedly enforce?

randusername

This man alleges Flock employees show up in the logs snooping in on private business feeds for pools, gymnastics studios, etc. https://substack.com/home/post/p-193593234 If you build it they will come.

hk1337

I wouldn't say I am a huge proponent of Flock, especially considering their lack luster security for the individual cameras at least in my area, but the title makes it sound like it's an institutional procedure that the department stalking their romantic interests instead of individual officers that need to be properly reprimanded.

childofhedgehog

It’s not surprising that no one is reviewing usage of these tools proactively, but it is disappointing. EDIT: typo

assimpleaspossi

>>media reports has identified at least 14 cases nationwide...since 2024. >>Nearly all of these officers were criminally charged and lost their jobs, either by resigning or getting fired.

mring33621

sounds way low to me

calvinmorrison

time to get rid of license plates

stronglikedan

I'm shocked that one of the most abusive groups of people have engaged in such behavior!

giraffe_lady

I've mentioned this before but I've been a volunteer court watcher for domestic violence court for some years now. Cases where a state surveillance tool or database was used to stalk or harass the victim are completely routine. Very often it is someone in an administrative role who has access to the tool, and I think they get caught more often because it's easier for automated audits to flag their use as clearly unnecessary. LEOs have a lot of benefit of the doubt on that and, from what I can tell, are pretty much free to do what they want with these tools. I do follow up on cases, I'm not supposed to participate in court but I can contribute community impact statements about systemic patterns I've observed. I haven't so far ever seen one of the cops in front of another court for this behavior, even when it was clearly documented by an order of protection being granted in DV court. I assume this problem is far far worse than I can perceive. Victims will only bring this to court with a lot of support and clear evidence, and even then with the offender being police, it's risky and frightening. Our police are automatically placed on administrative leave if served an order of protection, so the local judges are extremely resistant to ever actually granting one.

mulderc

I am not against Plate Readers in theory but feel like you should have to have a warrant to look things up in the database.

joecool1029

Around me these Flock cameras are spreading like fleas. Also, local psycho cop incidents seem to be on the rise. Last year a veterinarian and her bf were murdered by her ex (a state trooper) that blew his brains out after[1]. Just a month ago next town over one of the officers was arrested for placing tracking devices on his ex. [2] Around a decade ago I was harassed through the mail after a road-rage incident (plainclothes dude ran up to my car window after I parked to go to gym and claimed I cut him off, said: 'I'll remember you, you should be more careful'). He ran my plate and sent a vaguely threatening anonymous letter to my car's registered address. I opened a case with the Somerset County prosecutor's office of internal affairs. The prosecutor's office claimed there were no hits through the federal NCIC system, but in-state there was no audit log of plates checked through NJMVC, and even if there was a smart cop (or MVC employee, lots of people have access to it) could just ask a dispatcher to run it over the radio. They claimed that this system was getting moved to the New Jersey State police and it was expected this would have an audit log. So no resolution there, I found out who the guy was years later by chance when I saw him writing parking tickets and got his name off a ticket. I informally reported it to prosecutor's office at this point and they said something to the effect of 'Yeah, nobody likes the parking enforcement guy, if he pulls shit like this again let us know and we'll put an end to it' [1] https://nypost.com/2025/08/06/us-news/screaming-and-gunshots... [2] https://nj1015.com/clinton-police-stalking-arrest/

petiepooo

A surveillance technology, intended only for lawful use, is being used unlawfully. Huh. Who could have seen that coming?

Suppafly

Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the unauthorized uses outnumber the legitimate ones.