Flock is being tossed aside by tons of cities and the trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Sure, these cities may ultimately decide to go with another ALPR provider, but hopefully it will be one that’s a bit more serious about preventing abuse.
Recent changes by Flock, in response to months of sustained negative reporting, have the potential to limit abuse by officers, but they don’t really have the power to make it happen. You can add flags and guidelines by default, but if the defaults can be switched off and current users aren’t forced to comply with new demands, it really doesn’t do a damn thing.
While Flock and Flock’s supporters in law enforcement claim it’s essential to the business of fighting crime, the results speak for themselves. A national network that generates billions of plate/location images every month — coupled with plain text, AI-utilizing searches that allow officers to search for more than just plate images — lends itself to abuse. And how. Stories are surfacing daily about how officers have used Flock’s tech to stalk ex-spouses, ex-paramours, and anyone else they want to keep an (unofficial) eye on.
What’s semi-comforting is that even some law enforcement agencies are recognizing the tech’s potential for abuse and responding positively to public criticism. But before we start handing out gold stars to every cop shop that decides to rein things in because it can’t simply continue to ignore the people they’re supposed to be serving, let’s take a closer look at one attempted response that says far more than the police department probably thought it did.
Louisville Metro Police is limiting which officers are able to search the department’s controversial Flock automated license plate reader camera system, officials announced during a Sept. 16 news conference.
“Independent search capability will be generally limited to personnel who are assigned to investigative and analytical roles,” said Deputy Chief Emily McKinley. “These are detectives and analysts who are responsible for investigating crimes. They will be the ones who will have the search capability within the system.”
This seems like good news. And, to be fair, it is. At least up to a certain point. And that certain point has already been reached in the opening statement by the deputy chief. If you’re serious about limiting access to only people who should have access, you shouldn’t need to start hedging almost immediately. “Generally limited” is — at least from the outside — indistinguishable from a free-for-all. The PD gets to decide who should have access. But then it immediately says access won’t “generally” be limited to just those people.
The LMPD’s equivocation gets worse as the announcement continues. Worse, it makes it clear the LMPD was doing almost nothing to prevent abuse of Flock camera access prior to this point.
In addition to limiting who has access to Flock, LMPD officials said the department would add new training on Flock and tighten required documentation for searches. Outside agencies will also be restricted from accessing LMPD’s system without making a formal request.
Searches will need to include an identifying factor tying it to a case, such as a report or warrant number, and officers will be required to explain why a Flock search would be needed for the investigation.
The new policy also outlines prohibited uses, including “curiosity searches” as well as harassment and intimidation, McKinley said. Officers will not be allowed to share their credentials or conduct searches for unauthorized individuals.
This statement tells everyone everything the PD hasn’t done prior to this point. And “limiting access” doesn’t mean as much as it should when the deputy chief qualifies it with “generally” and later in the police chief Paul Humphrey’s statement, he says officers without access will still “receive appropriate information in a timely fashion,” which strongly suggests those without access will just ask others to perform searches on their behalf. That undercuts the assertion that “unauthorized individuals” will not be allowed to ask others to do what they can’t do themselves.
But the truly damning stuff is in the middle. These are policies going forward. And that means that up until now, the LMPD never required officers to tie searches to cases or to explain why they’re accessing the system. It also means the PD never considered taking a hardline stance on questionable searches before now. This next part of the chief’s statement perhaps explains why this has never been the case prior to this:
As part of the new policy, auditing will become routine and mandatory, McKinley said. LMPD will audit searches at least every 90 days using Flock’s audit assistance tool, which runs continuously to flag suspicious searches.
How in the fuck was none of this “routine and mandatory” before this? I mean, I know the answer. The less the police police themselves, the less often they have to fire, punish, or criminally charge one of their own. See no evil is SOP. Agencies willingly blind themselves to prevent having to engage in any form of accountability. The LMPD can no longer pretend it’s okay to simply pretend abuse isn’t happening because it deliberately hasn’t gone looking for it. Sure, things will be better going forward, but that doesn’t excuse this agency for refusing to engage in any minimal form of Flock accountability up to this point, even though Flock has given it access to audit tools pretty much since day one. This is on the LMPD, not Flock.
To its credit, auditing features have been provided by Flock for months, if not years. It’s the existence of these auditing tools (and the logs they generate) that have allowed activists, journalists, and even law enforcement agencies themselves to sniff out abusive searches. The LMPD could have been on top of this for months, but has only decided to start using these features because the public has forced it to.
While I do appreciate law enforcement doing the right thing, no matter how belatedly, I cannot praise them for deciding to do things they could have been doing for months, if not years. It’s this sort of thing that makes cops indistinguishable from criminals: it’s apparently not a crime unless you get caught.