Image: steveahlquist.substack.com
The Story
ALPRs can help solve serious crimes, but Flock’s safeguards and police oversight still need to be tested.
Blanche presents ALPRs as a public-safety tool for finding perpetrators of serious crimes, treating current privacy objections as misinformation rather than proof that the technology itself intrudes on privacy. The ordinary institutional reading is narrower: legitimate investigative use may coexist with safeguards, but documented misuse, incomplete transparency, and bipartisan requests for oversight make absolute assurances difficult to sustain.
- Public safetyThe technology is defended as useful for investigating violent crime and locating missing or abducted people.
- AccountabilityOfficial support does not resolve whether search rules, audits, warrants, and public reporting are strong enough.
- Blanche endorsed ALPRs for police investigations and said privacy concerns about the technology were misinformation.
- The Justice Department’s support for ALPR deployment stands alongside bipartisan requests for information about funding and oversight.
- Flock says audit logs can help uncover misconduct, while investigations report repeated misuse by law-enforcement personnel.
Deeper Insight
Blanche calls ALPR privacy concerns misinformation. Six hundred searches of one family show how a plate database becomes a stalking tool.
A camera logs a plate, location, dents, and bumper sticker. In one investigation, an officer searched Flock data about 600 times to track a former partner and her daughter. Blanche still calls privacy concerns misinformation. The danger is not only abuse. It is making constant tracking feel ordinary while the records stay hidden.
- What it could changePublic records and search logs could turn plate databases from secret trails into traceable audit records.
- How it touches todayEvery drive can leave a location trail that police and vendors may control more closely than the public can see.
- Our futureAnonymity could disappear one recorded bumper sticker at a time.
- The EFF found an officer searched 6,474 ALPR networks covering 82,413 cameras and entered “idk” instead of a legitimate search reason.
- An investigation identified officers using Flock data to stalk partners and other people, including roughly 600 searches involving one officer’s former partner and her daughter.
- The ACLU of Rhode Island found that Flock and local police transparency practices withheld information needed for independent verification.
Sources · 10
- 1 Journals & institutions
- 3 News reporting
- 1 Groups & independent outlets
- 2 Forum, video, personal
- 3 Other / unclassified
What do these mean?
- Journals & institutions. Published in a peer-reviewed journal, or from a university, government body, court or other institution.
- News reporting. Journalism: newspapers, magazines and news sites.
- Groups & independent outlets. Think tanks, advocacy groups and independent outlets or blogs, on any side of the question. They publish with a point of view.
- Forum, video, personal. Forums, social posts, video, blogs and personal accounts.
- Other / unclassified. A site we have not classified yet. This says nothing good or bad about it.
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Forum or personal account
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Think tank or advocacy group
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The trouble with Flock cameras is the surveillance system’s architecture, not just some of its users
News reporting
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