Flock “can’t tech its way out” of the stalker cop problem, experts say

Flock Safety's announcement that it will force all agencies using its license plate readers to enable an audit tool is a rare admission from a surveillance vendor that its own product can be turned against the public. The company's move is framed as a corrective step, but the underlying reality is more uncomfortable: the tool was available for months, and only a third of agencies opted in. That means the majority of police departments using Flock's cameras were content to leave a known vulnerability unpatched.

The Georgia case that pushed Flock to act is instructive. Three officers in a single sheriff's office were separately using the same surveillance network to stalk people they knew. That is not a technical glitch; it is a pattern of abuse that the vendor enabled by design. Flock's CEO now says the company made a mistake, but the mistake was not in building the tool. It was in assuming that law enforcement agencies would voluntarily adopt safeguards against their own officers' misconduct.

Experts quoted in the report are blunt: technology alone cannot solve a problem rooted in institutional culture and discretion. The audit tool can flag abnormal behavior, but it depends on administrators to review and act. If those administrators are part of the same culture that tolerates or hides abuse, the tool becomes a paper tiger. Flock's mandate is a step forward, but it does not address the deeper issue of agencies that can still bury incidents or decline to investigate their own.

The commercial angle is worth noting. Flock is a fast-growing company selling surveillance hardware to local police, and its reputation is now tied to how it handles these failures. Forcing the tool on all agencies is a defensive move, an attempt to preempt regulation and litigation. It is also a signal to investors that the company can manage risk. But the underlying product remains a network of cameras that capture every plate in sight, and the potential for misuse is inherent to that scale.

Remote work is not the story here. The relevant labor market is law enforcement, where accountability mechanisms are often weak and oversight is fragmented. Flock's decision may set a precedent for other surveillance vendors, but it does not change the fundamental power imbalance between those who watch and those who are watched. The tool is a patch, not a cure. Until agencies are willing to police themselves with real consequences, the stalker cop problem will persist, regardless of how many algorithms are deployed.