Yikes

On August 28, 2026, Governor Greg Abbott’s office confirmed that state agencies would pause state funding for Flock license plate reader cameras after two officer criminal cases. A former Katy police officer was indicted in Fort Bend County on stalkng and misuse-of-official-information charges; internal affairs records obtained by KHOU reportedly showed 2,386 searches of his ex-wife’s plate over 11 months. He was fired and has pleaded not guilty. A Lufkin officer was arrested by Texas Rangers on Aug. 20 and indicted on 100 felony counts of misuse of official information; Lufkin suspended its Flock use. The Texas Tribune reported a state agency has devoted at least $30 million in grants to local police for Flock cameras. Abbott’s spokesman said city funding mostly comes from the federal government, and state funds cannot be used for the cameras.

In August 2026 the Boston Globe reported that Littleton, Massachusetts officials had voted in May to shut down six Flock cameras on public roads, and that police later discovered Flock had restored power to the cameras without notifying the town. The department ordered the cameras remotely powered down and confirmed a Flock work order was in place to remove them from utility poles as soon as possible. Techdirt described it as the second time Flock had activated a system a town had voted to shut down. Techdirt also reported that an audit by the South Carolina Secretary of Transportation found more than 200 unpermitted Flock cameras operating on public roads. The Globe reported that Cambridge, Massachusetts terminated its Flock contract after two cameras were installed without notification following an earlier removal. No public cost figures were reported.

On May 9, 2025, a Johnson County, Texas, sheriff’s deputy used Flock Safety’s National Lookup feature to search for a woman’s license plate across more than 83,000 cameras in 6,809 law enforcement networks in multiple states. The reason logged for the search was “had an abortion, search for female.” After 404 Media reported the search, the sheriff and Flock described it as a welfare check for a missing person. Court records obtained by EFF showed deputies had opened a death investigation of a non-viable fetus, logged evidence of a self-managed abortion and consulted prosecutors about possible charges. The search reached data in Illinois and Washington; Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias reportedly called the use illegal. Two members of Congress wrote to Flock’s CEO in August 2025 about the episode.

In January 2025, a security researcher bought a Motorola ReaperHD license-plate-reader camera on eBay and found that many identical live cameras were misconfigured to stream colour video, infrared video and vehicle data including plate numbers to the open internet, viewable in real time with no username or password. The researcher used text from a 404 error page to locate exposed devices; more than 150 appeared in a public internet-scanning tool, and roughly 170 unencrypted ALPR streams were reported found. A tool published on GitHub logs plates, make, model and colour from exposed cameras to a CSV with a vehicle image. Motorola confirmed the exposures and said it was working with affected customers to close the open access. The ReaperHD is a legacy device whose sales were discontinued in June 2022. No public remediation cost was reported.