Flock Safety’s camera network has lost a round in court. A federal judge found that a sheriff’s deputy in Tulsa, Oklahoma crossed the Fourth Amendment line when he queried the company’s license-plate database without first obtaining a warrant – an early federal ruling against this kind of search.
Judge Sara Hill said the deputy had no apparent reason for the search beyond the fact that the woman’s car carried a California license plate. Evidence later found in her vehicle was suppressed as “the fruit of a poisonous tree”. Hill went further, describing warrantless tracking of people’s movements as a kind of “indiscriminate mass surveillance” that catalogs every vehicle passing a connected camera.
The ruling does not set binding precedent, but it lands amid mounting backlash. On Friday, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Ban Flock Act, which would bar federal agencies from using automated license plate readers and cut federal grants to states that keep them. The bill, co-sponsored by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jeff Merkley, faces long odds.
Flock is the largest US ALPR vendor, with more than 120,000 cameras and a valuation above $8B from its venture backers. Under pressure, the company has tightened data retention to seven days from 30 and added an audit tool, while chief executive Garrett Langley has apologized for abuse of the system and offered voluntary employee buyouts.
