Voyeuristic Cops are Using Their Uncontrollable Authority to Track Law Abiding People's Movements: Inside the Growing Misuse of Flock’s License-Plate Reader Cameras

Last December, Milwaukee Police Department internal affairs detectives began investigating an officer accused of misusing Flock, the department’s automated license-plate reader system.

The detectives investigating officer Josue Ayala found he secretly used Flock to learn the location of his romantic partner 124 times and that partner’s ex 55 times, according to a February criminal complaint.

Ayala agreed to resign from the department and plead guilty to attempted misconduct in public office as part of a deal, according to court records.

Then earlier this month, one of the detectives who had investigated Ayala was himself arrested for misusing the Flock system. The detective, Tehrangi Chapman, admitted to using Flock to track two people and to secretly installing a GPS device on one person’s vehicle, according to a criminal complaint.

The incidents are among at least two dozen cases in which officers resigned or were arrested for allegedly abusing Flock’s automated license-plate reader system to stalk romantic interests, according to a tally from the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm.

Just in the past month, five Albany police officers in Georgia were arrested and fired for allegedly misusing Flock, and police in Greer, South Carolina, fired two officers for misusing the product.

The cases underscore the growing use – and misuse – of automated license-plate reader systems, known as ALPRs, that police departments across the country have adopted in recent years. [MORE]