--- title: LAPD and other cities drop Flock Safety license plate... description: The LAPD has let its contract with Flock Safety expire after an inspector general audit found 32.3% of license plate recognition alerts were inaccurate, with... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/lapd-and-other-cities-drop-flock-safety-license-plate-cameras-over-privacy-and-accuracy-concerns-c3svrzaoo twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: LAPD and other cities drop Flock Safety license plate cameras over privacy and accuracy concerns | daily.dev og:description: The LAPD has let its contract with Flock Safety expire after an inspector general audit found 32.3% of license plate recognition alerts were inaccurate, with... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/lapd-and-other-cities-drop-flock-safety-license-plate-cameras-over-privacy-and-accuracy-concerns-c3svrzaoo og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/c3sVRZAOO.png og:image:alt: LAPD and other cities drop Flock Safety license plate cameras over privacy and accuracy concerns og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # LAPD and other cities drop Flock Safety license plate cameras over privacy and accuracy concerns **[Collections](https://daily.dev/sources/collections)** · 4 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary The LAPD has let its contract with Flock Safety expire after an inspector general audit found 32.3% of license plate recognition alerts were inaccurate, with 161 vehicles falsely flagged as stolen in two months. Mountain View, CA and South Portland, ME also dropped Flock contracts after discovering the company shared license plate data with hundreds of agencies — including federal entities — without city knowledge or permission. Additional concerns include officers using the system to stalk individuals (22 documented cases), security lapses leaving cameras exposed to the public internet, lack of multi-factor authentication on police accounts, and unauthorized DEA access via a local officer's credentials. Flock Safety still operates over 80,000 cameras nationwide, but the LAPD departure is notable given the department's size and the specificity of the audit findings. ## Content ## What Flock Safety does Flock Safety operates a network of over 80,000 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras across the United States. Police departments pay to access the system, which flags vehicles of interest — stolen cars, wanted suspects — and logs plate data that can be queried later. The pitch is simple: more cameras, faster investigations, safer streets. The reality has been messier. ## False positives with real consequences One case that drew attention involved a writer who was wrongly tracked and arrested after Flock's system matched a partial plate — 34 DTM — to his vehicle, which had the plate 34 10 DTM. The system flagged it as stolen. Flock's response was essentially that the machine learning worked as designed, and that police had entered the plate data incorrectly. What the incident actually revealed was a structural flaw: any vehicle in JLR's media fleet with the same alphanumeric structure (34 ## DTM) was being flagged nationwide. That's not an edge case. That's a design problem. The LAPD's inspector general found that 32.3% of Flock alerts were inaccurate during a review period, with 161 vehicles falsely flagged as stolen in just two months. Those false flags don't just generate paperwork — they trigger high-risk police stops of innocent people. ## Scope creep and unauthorized data sharing The system isn't just being used to find stolen cars. Reporting has documented police using Flock cameras to search for people by physical description, race, and political affiliation. That's a significant expansion from the original use case, and it's happening without clear legal authority or public disclosure. Mountain View, California disabled its cameras after discovering Flock had shared license plate data with hundreds of agencies — including federal entities — without the city's permission. That's a direct violation of what the city thought it had agreed to. South Portland, Maine dropped its contract over similar concerns that federal immigration officials had accessed the system in violation of local sanctuary city policies. The DEA was separately reported to have used a local officer's credentials to query the database without authorization. Flock's security practices haven't helped its case. Cameras were found exposed to the public internet, and police accounts lacked multi-factor authentication. ## A documented pattern of deception The ACLU has catalogued what it describes as a pattern of deliberate misrepresentation by Flock to city councils, police departments, and the public. In Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Flock's CISO told the city council the system didn't create heat maps of vehicle movements. That was false, and it was exposed the next morning. The council revoked the contract within 24 hours. Flock denied having federal contracts while working with CBP and DHS. The company published a blog post claiming ICE had no access to its data while knowing that local police — who did have access — were sharing information with ICE. Flock also misrepresented the effectiveness of its abortion-enforcement safeguards and falsely claimed on multiple occasions to have partnered with the ACLU. Flock's CEO separately apologized for calling privacy advocates "terrorists" in an earlier statement. ## Agencies pulling back The LAPD ended its three-year Flock contract, citing "serious concerns" over civil liberties, privacy, and data collection practices. Officers had allegedly misused the system for stalking in at least 22 documented cases. Mountain View and South Portland have both dropped their contracts. The backlash is no longer coming only from privacy advocates — it's coming from the agencies that were supposed to be Flock's customers. The ACLU's advice to governments is direct: be extremely skeptical of Flock's claims, and don't sign contracts with companies that have repeatedly misled public officials. That seems like a reasonable starting point. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Flock surveillance cameras are spreading across the US](https://daily.dev/posts/flock-surveillance-cameras-are-spreading-across-the-us-9dx0pt2ac) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#privacy](https://daily.dev/tags/privacy) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/lapd-and-other-cities-drop-flock-safety-license-plate-cameras-over-privacy-and-accuracy-concerns-c3svrzaoo) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"LAPD and other cities drop Flock Safety license plate cameras over privacy and accuracy concerns","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/lapd-and-other-cities-drop-flock-safety-license-plate-cameras-over-privacy-and-accuracy-concerns-c3svrzaoo","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/lapd-and-other-cities-drop-flock-safety-license-plate-cameras-over-privacy-and-accuracy-concerns-c3svrzaoo"},"datePublished":"2026-07-16T15:04:04.442Z","dateModified":"2026-07-21T02:41:51.851Z","description":"The LAPD has let its contract with Flock Safety expire after an inspector general audit found 32.3% of license plate recognition alerts were inaccurate, with...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/8fe9eeb967de205fd6743e2535f16178?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/8fe9eeb967de205fd6743e2535f16178?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Collections","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Collections","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--fk_6ycEi--/f_auto,q_auto/v1780996001/logos/collections?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/collections"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/lapd-and-other-cities-drop-flock-safety-license-plate-cameras-over-privacy-and-accuracy-concerns-c3svrzaoo","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"privacy","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Collections","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/collections"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"LAPD and other cities drop Flock Safety license plate cameras over privacy and accuracy concerns"}]} ```