Flock: A Different Perspective

I recently had an off-the-record conversation with several police officers who spend their days and more often their nights behind the wheel of a patrol car. Given some of my previous writing, a reader could reasonably assume I harbor animosity toward law enforcement. I do not.

What I oppose is the abuse of power. My criticism has always been directed at individual officers who misuse authority, supervisors who tolerate misconduct, and systems that make accountability unnecessarily difficult. Ironically, many of those same systems also make life harder for the officers working within them. My conversation challenged some assumptions I had about Flock Safety and automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology.

Like many Americans, I approached these systems with skepticism. Privacy concerns are legitimate. Any technology capable of tracking vehicle movements should be subjected to rigorous oversight and public scrutiny. Yet after speaking with the officers actually using these systems, I came away with a more complicated view. What struck me most was not how much power the technology gives officers. It was how much it helps them manage an increasingly difficult job.

Policing Under Pressure

American policing is facing significant challenges. Departments across the country continue to struggle with staffing shortages, recruitment difficulties, and retirements. Major agencies have reported elevated attrition rates since 2020, while many departments struggle to attract qualified replacements. At the same time, public confidence in law enforcement has declined. Gallup polling has shown confidence in police falling below 50 percent nationally, creating an environment where many officers begin interactions knowing they may already face distrust from the people they serve.

The job itself has also become more complex. Modern investigations often require officers to sort through body-camera footage, surveillance video, social media evidence, digital records, and forensic data. Meanwhile, assaults against officers have risen significantly over the past decade, increasing approximately 74 percent from 2014 levels according to data cited by the Council on Criminal Justice. None of this excuses misconduct. It simply describes the environment in which policing now operates. The officers I spoke with repeatedly returned to one theme: they are stretched thin.

Many described constantly being moved between patrol areas as staffing needs shift. Just as they become familiar with a neighborhood, its residents, and recurring issues, they are reassigned elsewhere. The result is less continuity and fewer opportunities to build the community relationships that many reform advocates rightly argue are essential. Yet despite these pressures, most officers told me they want to focus on serious crime. That is where Flock enters the conversation.

What Officers Say Flock Actually Does

Public discussions about automated license plate readers often create the impression that officers are using them to issue more traffic tickets or expand surveillance. The officers I spoke with described something different.

In their view, Flock allows them to spend less time conducting stops for minor infractions and more time focusing on stolen vehicles, wanted suspects, violent offenders, and active investigations.

The technology works by rapidly identifying vehicle characteristics and license plates while comparing them against customizable databases containing stolen vehicles, AMBER Alerts, felony warrants, and other law enforcement alerts. If a flagged vehicle enters a monitored area, officers receive a notification in real time. The practical effect, according to several officers, is improved prioritization.

Instead of stopping every vehicle with an expired registration or minor equipment violation, they can focus limited resources on vehicles connected to crimes that pose greater risks to public safety.

Several officers described incidents where Flock-assisted alerts led to the rapid apprehension of homicide suspects attempting to flee jurisdictions. Others pointed to recoveries of stolen vehicles and arrests of individuals with active warrants.

These outcomes align with broader research on automated license plate reader systems. Because vehicles are involved in a large percentage of criminal investigations, license plate information frequently becomes a critical evidentiary tool. Modern ALPR systems can identify vehicle make, model, color, and unique characteristics in seconds, dramatically reducing investigative time compared to manually reviewing hours of surveillance footage. From the perspective of officers facing personnel shortages and growing caseloads efficiency matters.

The Accountability Question

The strongest argument in favor of systems like Flock may not be their ability to identify suspects. It may be their ability to identify misconduct.

One concern frequently raised by critics is the possibility that officers could misuse these systems to track former partners, political opponents, neighbors, or private citizens. That concern is not hypothetical. Several officers across the United States have been arrested, charged, or convicted for improperly using ALPR systems.

A Milwaukee police officer was criminally charged after allegedly conducting repeated searches on a woman he was dating and her former partner. A former police chief in Georgia was arrested after allegedly using license plate reader systems to stalk private citizens. Similar cases have emerged in California and Kansas involving officers accused of using departmental databases to monitor spouses, romantic partners, or individuals with whom they had personal disputes. Those cases are troubling. But they also reveal something important. The misconduct was discovered because the systems maintained detailed audit trails. Every search was recorded. Every inquiry left a digital footprint.

In many ways, modern ALPR systems create more accountability than traditional policing methods because they document exactly who searched what, when, and for what reason.

The Privacy Trade-Off

None of this means privacy concerns should be dismissed. Critics raise valid questions about data retention, information sharing between jurisdictions, potential misuse, and the broader implications of expanding surveillance infrastructure. Democratic societies should be cautious whenever government agencies gain new technological capabilities.

The challenge is that public safety and privacy often exist in tension with one another. For many officers, the calculation is straightforward. They see a tool that helps recover stolen vehicles, locate wanted suspects, identify fleeing offenders, and solve crimes more quickly.

For many civil liberties advocates, the calculation is equally straightforward. They see infrastructure capable of tracking vehicle movements at an unprecedented scale. Both perspectives contain legitimate concerns.

The Genie and the Bottle

Perhaps the most surprising part of my conversation was hearing officers express concern that systems like Flock could eventually be removed due to public pressure. They viewed the technology as one of the few force multipliers available at a time when departments face staffing shortages, increasing workloads, and growing demands from the public.

Whether one agrees with that assessment or not, it reflects a reality worth understanding.  As someone who has spent years examining accountability, government power, and criminal justice systems, I remain cautious about surveillance technology. But I also left those conversations with a greater appreciation for the perspective of the people using it.

Too often, debates about policing occur without talking to police officers outside leadership. Technology rarely fits neatly into categories of good or bad. Most often, it is a tool that reflects the intentions, safeguards, and accountability structures surrounding it.

Sources

Flock Safety public documentation and transparency reports

Council on Criminal Justice data on officer assaults

Gallup confidence-in-police polling

Major reporting on the Ayala, Steffman, Josett, and Rector cases

Studies on ALPR effectiveness in vehicle recovery and criminal investigations