Investigated
Is Flock Technologies sharing ALPR data with federal agencies or intelligence partners?
Short answer
Image: wired.com
Yes—available reporting and records indicate that federal agencies, including CBP, ICE, and DOJ components, have accessed or searched data from Flock-connected ALPR networks. The central dispute is whether this reflects Flock directly sharing data, customer agencies granting access, configuration failures, or intermediary programs such as fusion centers and HIDTA.
The views on this question
Two lenses on the same evidence. Source weight and the primary source ratio show what each rests on.
Alternative
Source weight 44%The dissenting account emphasizes that formal customer ownership and contractual limits may not prevent practical federal access. It relies on records and investigations describing fusion-center searches for federal agencies, misconfiguration that exposed data across jurisdictions, and HIDTA systems that aggregate local ALPR feeds on federal servers.
- Released Santa Ana records reportedly show a regional fusion center conducting more than 27,000 searches of the city’s Flock network in six months, including searches associated with federal agencies.
- The reporting identifies searches linked to DOJ components including the FBI, ATF, U.S. Marshals Service, and DEA.
- An investigation reported that a configuration problem enabled agencies nationwide to access California data, prompting local investigations and contract concerns.
- Reporting on HIDTA describes local Flock and other ALPR data being aggregated on federal servers and made available to additional law-enforcement agencies, potentially including agencies without direct ALPR-company contracts.
- A community audit characterized available records as indicating likely sharing with CBP, while presenting its findings as an audit rather than a company-wide definitive accounting.