Did Flock Safety's Use of Fake Police Accounts to Search Live License-Plate Cameras Cross a Line?

Flock Safety's automated license plate readers are used by thousands of law enforcement agencies and by private clients such as homeowners' associations across the United States. 404 Media reported (opens in a new tab) on September 17, 2026 that public records show Flock ran searches on live, real cameras through internal accounts named "Flock City PD - Law Enforcement Demo," "Flock Intelligence," and "Flock Safety - Commercial Sales Demo," in Dunwoody, Georgia; Bryan, Texas; and other unnamed jurisdictions.

The searches documented in the audit logs included queries for people holding signs, crowds, and people wearing masks, as well as more sensitive terms: "coexist bumper sticker," "vehicle a pretty girl would drive," "white truck with a trump sticker," "religious cars," "Star of David," and "don't tread on me flag," among others.

A Flock spokesperson told 404 Media that some of these searches, including for "vehicle a pretty girl would drive" and for "Star of David," were deliberately run to test and demonstrate the company's search-moderation safeguards, and were not real investigative searches conducted by a customer law enforcement agency. In a company blog post (opens in a new tab), Flock wrote that bumper stickers can indicate religious affiliation or nationality and that its moderation policy needs to "recognize, flag, and block" such searches.

404 Media reported that the audit logs nonetheless show several sensitive searches, including "crowd," "a person wearing scrubs," and "large group with signs," were explicitly allowed rather than blocked, and that other sensitive searches, such as "vehicle with trump bumper sticker" and "Star of David," received only a warning rather than being blocked outright.

Dunwoody resident McKayla Hunyar, a privacy advocate who has previously spoken against the city's Flock contract, told 404 Media that Flock's own explanation "provides the opposite assurance of what they seem to purport," because it confirms the company's camera network does capture this sensitive information, with access to it "controlled solely by the policies of a for-profit corporation."

This is one of several controversies involving Flock Safety's access to and demonstration of live camera data reported by 404 Media and other outlets; this case concerns specifically the "Flock City PD" demonstration accounts and the September 17, 2026 report about them, not Flock's broader public record.