A Company That Tracks Cars with Cameras Is Adding New Privacy Rules. Here's Why.

On August 14, 2026, a company called Flock Safety announced new privacy rules for its system of cameras that photograph cars and licence plates across the United States. The changes come after reports that at least 50 police officers have been accused, charged, or convicted of using the cameras to spy on people, including romantic partners and exes (Al Jazeera).

Flock Safety, based in Atlanta, runs about 120,000 cameras nationwide. The cameras capture images of vehicles and their licence plates and store them in a searchable database. A Washington Post investigation in early August 2026 found that at least 46 officers had been accused of using Flock's cameras to track people without permission, including wives, girlfriends, and former partners. By August 13, that number had risen to at least 50 accused, charged, or convicted officers across Flock's system and other licence-plate readers (Good Morning America). In one case, a police officer allegedly used Flock cameras to track a boyfriend's ex-wife, according to a police chief (ABC News).

What Flock Is Changing

The company is making changes in three areas: how long it keeps data, who can search it, and how it is shared between police departments.

First, Flock is cutting the default time it stores camera images from 30 days to 7 days. An "evidence mode" will allow longer storage in special cases. Second, by the end of 2026, police officers will need to enter a case code, a reference number tied to a specific investigation, every time they search the system. Third, Flock is making an audit feature mandatory. The audit records all searches and flags unusual activity. Anyone showing abnormal behaviour will be locked out of the system for review (Al Jazeera).

Flock will also let police departments set filters on what other departments can search. For example, a department could allow its data to be searched only for stolen vehicles, missing persons, or violent crimes, while blocking searches related to immigration enforcement (Al Jazeera).

What Critics Say

The American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, welcomed the shorter storage time but dismissed the other changes as superficial or recycled versions of safety features that were not enough before (Al Jazeera).

The ACLU's reaction points to a key issue: there is a difference between a company saying its system has safety features and those features actually preventing misuse. Flock has long said that every search of its system is recorded and reviewable, and that the platform cannot recognize, identify, or track individuals (Flock Safety). The company has also said that more than 30 courts have ruled its cameras do not amount to mass surveillance, because they capture images on public roads rather than tracking movement (Flock Safety). Flock describes its platform as a network of individual cameras that send vehicle data to a user interface (Flock Safety).

But the investigations show those safeguards did not stop misuse. As of April 2026, the Institute for Justice had documented at least 14 stalking cases involving licence-plate readers in recent years, even as providers said their internal controls were sufficient (Institute for Justice). The rise from 46 accused officers in early August to at least 50 by August 13 suggests more cases are still coming to light.

Why This Matters

The structure of the new measures shows where Flock thinks the problem is. Shorter storage means less time for someone to misuse data. Mandatory audits with automatic lockout address the fact that officers were able to search the system without being caught. And the filters on data sharing respond to concerns about how many different departments can access one agency's camera feeds.

Whether these changes satisfy critics or simply lead to more scrutiny is an open question. The ACLU calling most of the changes recycled suggests the real debate will be about enforcement and verification, not announcements. Flock is also hosting "Flock Forward 2026," an Atlanta public safety conference whose topics include surveillance, stalking, and planned burglaries (Flock Safety), a sign the company is aware of the reputational stakes even as it fights the mass-surveillance label in court.

The broader context here is the tension between a powerful tool built to help solve crimes and the rules needed to stop that same tool from being used to target individuals. Flock's platform, with 120,000 cameras feeding a searchable database, gives a single officer a capability that used to require a team of detectives physically following someone in a car.

The new safeguards try to add speed bumps into a system designed to be fast and easy to use. Shorter storage, mandatory audits, lockout triggers, filters, and case codes each add a checkpoint where there may not have been one before. But whether the problem was simply a lack of checkpoints, or whether it runs deeper into police department culture and oversight, is something software changes can help with but cannot fix on their own.