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

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

#51

Post by mrhottakes »

tfrancisl wrote: post #7
loteck wrote: post #5

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 sear…

I would guess the only way to make this data available long term is by regulation. Then again, I would hope Flock is subject to FOIA already if they are collaborating with state or local law enforcement...

FOIA does not apply outside government entities. Maybe you can get the data from the entity itself, but good luck.

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

#52

Post by clark_dent »

waynecochran wrote: post #42
JohnMakin wrote: post #2

"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.

"14x times" to me sounds like statistically "zero" since I assume the sample size would be in the millions "at least."

How many millions of police officers do you think there are?

How many of those do you think have open and available records for their use of surveillance tech?

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

#53

Post by mrhottakes »

waynecochran wrote: post #42
JohnMakin wrote: post #2

"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.

"14x times" to me sounds like statistically "zero" since I assume the sample size would be in the millions "at least."

So, as long as something only grievously harms a small percentage of people, it's fine. Good to know.

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

#54

Post by buellerbueller »

waynecochran wrote: post #42
JohnMakin wrote: post #2

"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.

"14x times" to me sounds like statistically "zero" since I assume the sample size would be in the millions "at least."

Humanity has used strategic nukes a statistically "zero" number of times, therefore nuclear proliferation is not a concern, nor should it be.

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

#56

Post by rationalist »

assimpleaspossi wrote: post #29

>>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.

> by resigning

Ah, so then they just resumed another law enforcement job in the next town over like so many do, whose investigations into their criminal activity was terminated because they resigned, and because they were never charged or fired, then they have a clean record to apply elsewhere.

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

#57

Post by tfrancisl »

hypeatei wrote: post #48
tfrancisl wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess the only way to make this data available long term is by regulation. Then again, I would hope Flock is subject to FOIA already if they are collaborating with state or local law enforcement...

> I would hope Flock is subject to FOIA Isn't FOIA only applicable to federal government agencies?

This is true. I often forget because my state has an equivalent law.

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

#59

Post by Spooky23 »

hk1337 wrote: post #12

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.

It's a system whose implementations don't do anything to prevent or even detect this. It's not licensed by seat, so it doesn't require SSO and when the data was available it was obvious that most departments use shared accounts. There are no laws to regulate the use of it, so they do not. It gets rushed into production via Federal grants with limited time windows.

If you have a system that isn't designed around accountability in a place like a police department, you won't get accountability, and you will get institutionalized poor behavior. It's one of the reasons that state police organizations are usually considered more "professional" or better disciplined than most local departments.

Bureaucracy and size reduces random dumbass employee use of their discretion. People look the other way less often when there is a record of malfesance right in front of them. You don't need to be "pro" or "against" police to demand accountability.

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

#60

Post by 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.

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