Flock AI License Plate Data Leak Exposes Millions
Police departments failed to adequately redact license plate surveillance data from Flock cameras released in public records requests, exposing 2.3 million license plates and millions of law enforcement search queries. A website aggregating this data triggered a backlash, leading the Santa Cruz City Council to vote to terminate its contract with Flock Safety over privacy and data governance concerns.
What happened
Police departments failed to properly redact license plate surveillance data gathered by Flock that was released as part of public records requests. The dataset included 2.3 million license plates and tens of millions of search queries made by law enforcement across thousands of police departments.
A website called HaveIBeenFlocked aggregated and made searchable this publicly released but inadequately redacted data, allowing individuals to see whether they were surveilled by Flock cameras. The searches detail sensitive information such as surveillance targets, suspects and victims of crime, including law enforcement queries made for reasons such as protesting.
Reported impact
The Santa Cruz City Council voted 6-1 to terminate the city's contract with Flock Safety in response to the incident. Council members cited concerns that the Flock platform had repeatedly created opportunities for data to be used in ways the city never intended and fears that data could be used by the Trump administration for immigration enforcement.
Index analysis
The data leak resulted from policy failures and inadequate redaction practices rather than technical vulnerability. According to HaveIBeenFlocked's creator Cris van Pelt, "Policies exist to prevent the release of this information — they are not adhered to. Laws and regulations exist to enforce the policies — they go unenforced."
Governance controls
Flock responded to the data exposure by contacting HaveIBeenFlocked and threatening the website's hosting license, characterizing the site as "doxxing cops during active investigations." HaveIBeenFlocked's creator defended the site as merely "aggregating and reformatting already-public information."
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.