01
Official findings and staff actions
SOS Alexi Giannoulias said an audit found Flock let U.S. Customs and Border Protection reach Illinois plate cameras, against Illinois law that bars ALPR sharing for immigration (and abortion-care) investigations. A sample of 12 Illinois agencies showed no proper safeguards. Flock leadership said it had not known about a federal pilot. CEO Garrett Langley said some public statements were inaccurate, that federal-agency users did not have distinct permissions, and that Flock paused all federal pilots.
This is a state official finding plus a company admission, not a court judgment. It does not prove CBP used Illinois data for civil deportation. It does not prove Flock has a current ICE contract.
Illinois SOS release, 25 Aug 2025 · NBC Chicago · AP.
After the SOS audit and Flock's admission, Evanston deactivated its cameras and moved to end the contract early (about 19 cameras). Earlier FOIA showed non-Illinois partners had run immigration-reason searches on networks Evanston shared with.
The logs showed partner agencies searching. That is not the same as "Evanston officers searched for ICE." Flock later challenged the termination. The later court or settlement outcome is not verified on this page.
Evanston RoundTable, 26 Aug 2025.
A detective shared a Flock login with a DEA group. A federal agent ran 24 searches reason-coded "immigration violation," which Illinois law restricts. The department said the officer violated security practice, changed passwords, and tightened MFA and national lookup.
This is a credential-control failure, found after press FOIA. It is not "Flock sold a login."
Unraveled Press · TechCrunch, 3 Nov 2025.
Attorney General Rob Bonta sued El Cajon after the city refused to stop sharing ALPR data with out-of-state agencies, against a 2023 AG bulletin on SB 34 / Civil Code § 1798.90.55. The suit names a long list of partner states, including Florida.
This is a pending writ against the city, not a judgment against Flock, and not a final court win.
California DOJ press release, 3 Oct 2025.
Texas Department of Public Safety treated Flock's in-state work as unlicensed private security for years, issued a cease-and-desist in 2024, and later assessed a $500 first-offender fine (the statutory maximum for that class). A license was later issued through 30 Sep 2026.
This is a licensing finding. It is not a ruling that Flock cameras are illegal in Texas now, and it is not a privacy judgment.
Houston Chronicle via Yahoo (DPS $500 first-offender fine; license later issued through 30 Sep 2026).
On 7 Aug, City Council directed a review. City Manager Matthew Morton said cameras may not have been properly permitted or installed. Morton and Chief Jeff Spears took the system offline and hooded the units.
On 24 Aug, Morton said each location was verified, the permitting issue was corrected, and the system went back online. Florida Today prints 51 city cameras after those checks. Spectrum on 7 Aug quoted the mayor at 16. This page keeps 51 as the later city-process figure. It is still press, not a clerk exhibit. Those cameras sit on city streets. They are outside FDOT memo EOM 26-01. Florida Today said Palm Bay had not answered after the memo as of noon 1 Sep 2026.
The 7 Aug pause is a preliminary staff permitting action. It is not a council finding that the system is illegal. Restore is not a clean bill. It is staff saying the permit basis to keep it offline was gone.
WFTV, 7 Aug 2026 · Space Coast Daily, 7 Aug · Florida Today, 24 Aug 2026 · Space Coast Daily, 24 Aug.
Engineering and Operations Memorandum No. 26-01, signed by Will Watts, P.E., Chief Operating Officer / Assistant Secretary, revoked local-agency LPR permits in the right-of-way of the State Highway System. Permittees have 30 days from 31 Aug 2026 to remove the devices, or FDOT will. New LPR permits in that jurisdiction stop as of the memo date. The memo is vendor-neutral. It does not name Flock. It cites reports of misuse, data privacy concerns, and surveillance schemes. Governor DeSantis and Secretary Perdue appear on letterhead. They did not sign this memo. No executive order is on this page.
This is a state permit revocation for state-road poles. It is not a statewide camera ban. It does not take down city-street, county-road, or private poles. It does not order stored data deleted. Tampa PD's city contract is not this memo.
FDOT memo EOM 26-01 (PDF) · s. 316.0777, F.S. · NBC News, 31 Aug 2026 (98% local figure is DeSantis in press, not an FDOT inventory) · Florida page.
Mountain View Police said Flock turned on a nationwide search setting without the department's permission or knowledge. Named federal accessors of one camera included ATF offices, Langley AFB, GSA OIG, and others. Flock did not retain records for that window, so it could not say whether searches returned Mountain View plate data. A statewide setting also let unapproved California agencies query 29 of 30 cameras. The city called it a system failure on Flock's part. Cameras were shut off 2 Feb 2026. Council voted unanimously 24 Feb to end the contract.
Local press of public records: more than 250 unapproved California agencies ran roughly 600,000 searches of city records Dec 2024-Dec 2025. This is a staff/city finding plus a council termination, not a court judgment.
Mountain View city bulletin · MV-Voice, 2 Feb 2026 · MV-Voice, 25 Feb 2026.
VCSO said it had disabled Flock National Lookup in Jun 2023 for California ALPR-sharing limits, then found out-of-state agencies queried sheriff data just over 364,000 times in about one month in 2025 without approval. 299 justifications referenced immigration enforcement (sheriff: less than 1% of those queries). Flock told the sheriff it could not determine the cause because of limits in technical logging. The sheriff said no one in the agency reactivated the feature. Oxnard PD had set California-only in Dec 2023; an audit found two May 2025 nationwide queries by U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Police that included Oxnard data. The chief called it a Flock shortcoming and suspended 19 cameras. Ventura PD reported a vendor configuration error that allowed unauthorized out-of-state queries.
These are staff findings. Do not treat 364,000 as confirmed image disclosures. Agencies said they may not know what was returned.
CBS Los Angeles · Ventura County Star, 27 Feb 2026.
Two weeks after the Flock/CBP audit already on this page, SOS Alexi Giannoulias said Forest Park Police's Motorola ALPR system also gave CBP access to Illinois plate-camera data, against Illinois law that bars ALPR sharing for immigration and abortion-care investigations. The SOS directed Motorola to work with Forest Park to shut off sharing with CBP and other federal agencies. Motorola did so, per the SOS.
This is a state official finding, not a court judgment, and not a Flock item.
Illinois SOS release, 5 Sep 2025.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation releases: a Braselton police chief arrested 19 Nov 2025 on ALPR-misuse and stalking-related charges; a former Echols County Sheriff's Office employee arrested 7 Jan 2026 after accessing the office Flock account for a non-law-enforcement purpose; five former Albany officers arrested 6 Jul 2026 after an internal Flock audit. Those are official charges, not convictions. This page does not name them.
Washington Post (2 Aug 2026), from police and court records, counted at least 50 U.S. officers charged or accused of using ALPRs for unauthorized purposes; Flock's system was used in 46 of those cases; in 26, investigators or prosecutors said the technology was used to spy on intimate partners or women the officers wanted to meet. Those are the Post's counts from records, not a Flock admission and not a nationwide conviction count.
GBI, 19 Nov 2025 · GBI, 7 Jan 2026 · GBI, 6 Jul 2026 · Washington Post, 2 Aug 2026.
These are audit-log and FOIA stories. A typed reason field is not a court finding. Some agencies later said an "ICE" string was a criminal Homeland Security Investigations case.
USA TODAY's agency page prints 73,126 unique searches from 1 Jan 2023 to 20 Jun 2026 (357 known users, 7,087 unique plates, 63% redacted). Printed top reasons include investigation 6,268; a case-number prompt 4,694; and an active-call prompt 2,172. That is the log. A typed reason is not a court finding. This page does not reprint officer initials or plates. Flock began redacting most of those fields from customer-facing logs in December 2025.
The 26 Aug sheriff letter, as reprinted, ends the county right-of-way interlocal on 30 Sep 2026. It does not zero this log. It does not name Flock.
Pasco SO JSON, org 2637 · USA TODAY Flock Search History · USA TODAY, 28 Aug 2026 · Pasco page.
USA TODAY prints 4,036 unique searches for Plant City FL PD, 3 Jan 2023 to 19 Jun 2026 (44 known users, 245 unique plates, 71% redacted). Printed top reasons: Drugs 234. 90Z All Other Offenses 231. Missing Person 166. A leftover NIBRS bucket is not a crime. A Flock lookup is not a warrant. This is not a camera count.
Agency summary JSON, org 2006 · Flock Search History · USA TODAY, 28 Aug 2026 · Plant City stats · Why 90Z is a junk drawer.
USA TODAY analyzed more than 75 million Flock searches spanning January 2023 to July 2026. The national tool prints 75,690,410 unique searches across 6,337 agencies. The story says many searches used vague reasons such as "INVESTIGATION," and that Flock blacked out most initials, plates, and reasons from customer audit logs in December 2025. Florida in that story: Sarasota Police fired and arrested an officer after hundreds of searches of an ex-partner's car. That is press. It is not a Pasco or Hillsborough clerk finding. This page does not name that officer.
USA TODAY, 28 Aug 2026 · Flock Search History.
404 Media reported FWC search logs with ICE or immigration reasons. 38 FWC searches of Ball State network data in January, each search reportedly querying more than 5,000 Flock networks. Other Florida agencies also appeared in that January list. The DeSantis office said FWC has a 287(g) agreement.
These are public-record logs, not a s. 316.0777 violation. Florida law allows disclosure to a criminal justice agency in official duties.
404 Media, 6 Apr 2026.
404 Media (May 2025) and EFF court records (7 Oct 2025) describe a nationwide ALPR search. The log reason: had an abortion, search for female. A later affidavit described a death investigation. This page does not name the woman and does not print a plate.
This is documented reason text plus later sworn paperwork, not a court holding that Flock broke Texas or Illinois law.
404 Media, May 2025 · EFF, 7 Oct 2025.
Sarasota PD: USA TODAY reports an affidavit of 358 queries of one plate May-Oct 2025; the officer was terminated and arrested 19 Aug 2026; charges pending. Haines City PD: affidavit of 717 Flock inquiries 1 Sep 2024-30 Jun 2026; arrested 11 Aug 2026; charges pending. Sumter County SO: 47 Flock searches of one plate Apr-Jul 2026 plus false case numbers; fired and arrested 23 Jul 2026; the sheriff paused Flock, which is a pause, not a ruling that cameras are illegal. Niceville PD: Oct 2025 arrest; Apr 2026 no-contest plea, adjudication withheld.
This page does not name officers, partners, or plates. Charges pending except Niceville's plea.
USA TODAY, 28 Aug 2026 · Sarasota PD news releases · Fox 13, Haines City · WESH, Sumter · Mid Bay News, Niceville.
Logs covering about Jun 2024 to spring 2025 showed more than 4,000 nation or state lookups with reasons such as ICE, ICE+ERO, immigration, or ICE warrant. ICE had no formal Flock contract in that reporting. Local users searched on federal behalf.
404 Media, 27 May 2025.
Data from three police departments showed CBP regularly searching more than 80,000 cameras. At least one department said it did not know it was sharing with CBP. Flock said it paused federal pilots. "80,000" is the searchable count in those logs, not a CBP-owned fleet. A pause is not a permanent ban.
404 Media, 25 Aug 2025.
Colorado Open Records Act logs showed more than 1,400 searches of Denver data with an ICE or immigration reason, mostly by out-of-state departments. Denver later turned national lookup off. The mayor's office said the logs do not show Colorado agencies violating state law.
Do not read this as "Denver PD illegally shared with ICE." Read it as out-of-state users searched Denver cameras using those reason words.
Colorado Newsline, 6 Aug 2025.
EFF reviewed more than 12 million searches across 3,900-plus agencies. Hundreds of lookups used reasons such as protest, No Kings, 50501, ICE protest, or DxE, often with no crime named. Some agencies have policies against First Amendment monitoring. Some other rows were crimes that happened at protests.
This is documented reason text, not a court holding that each search was unconstitutional. This site does not name private activists.
EFF, 20 Nov 2025.
After reporters and researchers used network audits, Flock removed officer name, queried plate, and free-text reason from the network-audit view shown to partner agencies. A spokesperson cited officer safety. Flock said most states do not legally require those fields on partner audits.
This is a transparency reduction. It is not proof that Flock deleted all internal audit trails.
InvestigateTV, 10 Aug 2026.
03
Filed cases, not decided
Complaint in San Francisco Superior Court (later removed to N.D. Cal., 3:26-cv-02382) alleges Flock enabled out-of-state and federal access to California ALPR data against SB 34. It cites figures such as 1.6 million out-of-state searches of SFPD data (Aug 2024-Feb 2025) and a CHP ICE-purpose search across hundreds of California networks. Those numbers are in the complaint.
Treat every city example in that filing as an allegation until a court adopts it. A related case, Eldridge, was consolidated in N.D. Cal. as In re Flock Group Inc. ALPR Litigation (3:26-cv-02375). Same sharing theory. No merits ruling as of 2 Sep 2026.
Complaint PDF · Eldridge docket, CourtListener.
Residents allege the 31-camera system violates the Colorado Constitution and that the city refused a requester's own plate records. The complaint also retells national anecdotes. Those retellings are not Boulder findings.
Colorado district court 2026CV30465 (complaint circulated by Courthouse News).
N.D. Ga. 1:26-cv-04843. National class action alleging officer stalking and failed safeguards.
This is a filed case, not a win.
Complaint PDF · Atlanta News First, 4 Sep 2026 · WIS-TV, 2 Sep 2026 · News clip.
M.D. Fla. 6:26-cv-01263. A driver sued two FHP troopers. An arrest report cited a nearby Flock hit on I-4; charges were dropped; a different driver was later arrested. The suit alleges troopers swore to damage that photos did not show.
This is a filed case, not a judgment, and not a proven OCR miss. A nearby Flock hit in a report is not a finding that the camera caused the arrest.
WESH.
Warrantless retrospective ALPR search case against the city, not Flock. A tentative ruling favoring the city was reported 6 Aug 2026.
This is a filed case. The tentative is not treated here as a final judgment.
EFF press release.
04
Security and false hits
Sens. Wyden and Krishnamoorthi told the FTC that at least 35 Flock customer logins appeared in infostealer data, and that MFA was still optional for some agencies. They asked the FTC to treat missing MFA as unfairness under FTC Act §5. Flock later said MFA became mandatory in early Aug 2026.
No FTC complaint or order was found as of 24 Aug 2026. The stolen logins were from customer devices, not a proven break of Flock's core systems.
Wyden letter PDF · TechCrunch · Flock 13 Aug 2026 guardrails post.
404 Media found Condor PTZ livestreams and admin panels on the open internet. Flock called it a limited misconfiguration, later remedied, not a cloud hack. These are Condor PTZ units, not Falcon plate readers.
404 Media, 22 Dec 2025.
404 Media reported Flock search-query fragments indexed in DuckDuckGo and Bing. Flock confirmed about 70 results and said cached content was portions of queries, not a full dump of search results. Do not inflate that figure.
404 Media, 11 Jun 2026.
Reputable press has documented plate-misread stops (including a Toledo case) and hotlist error rates in specific cities (Business Insider on Roseville, CA). The Texas Tribune (3 Aug 2026) cited Institute for Justice counts of erroneous-hit cases. Flock's 13 Aug 2026 post claims fewer than 9 human-reported errors per million alerts and says officers must visually confirm.
This page does not claim a nationwide error rate. It does not claim a verified wrong-house raid caused by Flock. No primary for that raid claim was found.
Texas Tribune, 3 Aug 2026 · Business Insider, 3 Aug 2026.