AIBRIEF
The license plate camera vendor is making case numbers mandatory for searches, but doesn't verify them and has not disclosed how well its automatic audit tool works.
Flock, the company behind a nationwide network of 120,000 license-plate-reading cameras that US police departments can search together, is making two of its safeguards mandatory: officers will have to type a criminal case number before running a search, and an automatic system that flags suspicious officer searches will be turned on for every agency (MIT Technology Review).
Flock will not actually check whether the case numbers officers type in are real. A Washington Post investigation, reported by MIT Technology Review, found 46 cases in which officers were accused of using the network for unauthorized purposes, including stalking ex-partners. The American Civil Liberties Union has separately documented that officers at one Oregon department mocked an earlier "reason for search" prompt by typing "hehehe" twenty times.
The audit tool is now on by default, but Flock has not disclosed how accurate it is and has not let outside groups test it. The company is also recommending that agencies keep license-plate data for seven days rather than thirty, though departments can override that.
Several cities have already canceled Flock contracts over surveillance and abuse concerns, according to NPR and NBC News.