Multiple US municipalities voted Tuesday on ballot measures targeting automatic license plate readers like those made by Flock Safety. York County, Maine passed a measure 72-28 to remove existing ALPRs and require voter approval for future installations, while League City, Texas voters rejected continued police use of the cameras by a 54-46 margin. Pflugerville, Texas also passed ordinances requiring public approval before deploying facial recognition or other AI surveillance tools.
futurism.com
· 2026-11-06
Plymouth City Council voted on September 22 to end its contract with license-plate camera maker Flock, and the city notified Flock the next day, followed by a formal cancellation letter. When Flock did not respond for more than a week, Police Chief Eric Fadden ordered staff to unplug the cameras' power cords to stop them from recording.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-11-01
The ACLU published a report on October 26 alleging that police departments are using AI systems analyzing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data to flag drivers' travel patterns as 'suspicious,' then stopping them under pretext of minor traffic violations. Policy analyst Jay Stanley cited cases, including a woman stopped on a cross-country trip after her driving history triggered an alert, with some officers allegedly not disclosing the real reason for the stop.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-10-27
MapQuest has released an app update featuring a new Surveillance Layer that plots the locations of license plate readers from Flock Safety, Motorola Solutions, Genetec, Axis Communications, Axon, and several other manufacturers. The company announced the feature on Bluesky, noting that it also shows the direction each camera faces, letting users identify and potentially avoid known automatic license plate recognition devices.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-10-18
MapQuest has launched a new "Surveillance Layer" that marks locations of automated license plate readers and outdoor surveillance cameras, including devices from Flock Safety, Motorola Solutions, Genetec, Axis Communications, Axon and other manufacturers. The company has not disclosed exactly how it sources the data, though the dataset resembles crowdsourced maps maintained by DeFlock and OpenStreetMap contributors.
yro.slashdot.org
· 2026-10-17
Tyler Murkerson has filed a lawsuit against Flock Safety and the Coweta County Sheriff's Office, alleging deputies repeatedly searched his license plate in the Flock system without probable cause while a separate excessive-force suit he filed against the department was pending. His attorneys say deputies entered meaningless justifications like 'info' and '37' for these searches, and that Flock's software let officers type anything into a free-text field instead of requiring a verified case number.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-14
Tyler Murkerson has filed a lawsuit against Flock Safety, Coweta County, Sheriff Lenn Wood, two named deputies, and three unidentified operators, alleging deputies used Flock's automated license plate reader network to track his vehicle while he had a separate civil rights suit pending against the sheriff's office. Audit records cited in the suit show a 197-day surveillance period on his car and five searches spanning over 6,000 camera networks nationwide, two of which are tied to named deputies. The suit seeks class-action status on behalf of others whose vehicles were searched without documented investigative justification.
techspot.com
· 2026-10-13
Canadian software engineer Anthony Sistilli built a $180 automatic license plate recognition camera designed specifically to detect and photograph police vehicles, using AI tools to build the software. After he posted videos of the project to YouTube, two Peel Regional Police officers visited his home, expressing concern that tracking officers' movements could expose their routines. Sistilli said the system remains an unreliable prototype, capturing only two readable images of police vehicles during an hour-long test.
techspot.com
· 2026-10-12
Software engineer and YouTuber Anthony Sistilli built his own automatic license plate recognition camera designed specifically to track police vehicles, modeling it on networks like Flock Safety's. After he posted videos detailing the build and demonstrating it in use, two Peel Regional Police officers visited his home in Brampton, Ontario, to question him about his intentions.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-10-11
A federal jury sided with Alek Schott in his lawsuit against Bexar County and its sheriff, awarding him $76—one dollar for each minute he was detained. Schott was pulled over in March 2022 on a pretextual claim of lane drifting, but the real trigger was a WhatsApp tip from a contact with access to automated license plate reader data, who flagged his travel pattern as suspicious.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-08
A former police officer argues that Flock Safety's automated license plate recognition cameras have replaced guesswork with instant, precise identification of stolen vehicles. The Atlanta startup, founded in 2017, installs solar-powered roadside cameras that photograph passing cars, log identifying details, and check plates against the FBI's national database in real time, alerting officers to matches.
worksinprogress.co
· 2026-10-07
Lexington, Kentucky police surrounded the home of Will Penn and Robin Pen at 4 a.m. with guns drawn after automatic license plate reader data from Flock Safety flagged Penn's truck as resembling a vehicle described in a felony assault case. Officers confirmed the couple had no connection to the crime, but the raid occurred while Penn's 94-year-old grandmother was in the house.
futurism.com
· 2026-10-03
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