Police keep losing their jobs for using Flock cameras to stalk people

Flock cameras—solar-powered, automated license plate readers, weighing less than 3 pounds and designed to be unobtrusive—can be found on 80,000 street corners throughout the country. The company behind the cameras built an $8.3 billion business empowering officers to track people’s movements. Nationwide, Flock cameras log billions of license plates each month. And now dozens of reports are emerging of police using the cameras not to solve crimes, but to stalk their partners and exes.

Over a two-month period in 2025, Milwaukee police officer Josue Ayala searched the license plate number of someone he was dating over 200 times, according to court documents. He also searched for his partner’s ex. 

Another Milwaukee officer, Tehrangi Chapman, was assigned to investigate Ayala’s case. Ayala was charged with misconduct, resigned, and was sentenced to one year’s probation. Then, this week, Chapman too was charged with “misuse of GPS information.” While investigating Ayala, he allegedly engaged in the exact same misconduct, using the technology to track people in his own life. 

The Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm, identified at least 24 similar cases nationwide of officers using automated license-plate reader (ALPR) cameras like Flock to stalk romantic interests over the past two years. Nearly all of those officers were criminally charged and lost their jobs. 

This month alone, at least six new cases were reported in local media outlets. Beyond Chapman’s case in Wisconsin, officers in Illinois, South Carolina, Texas, California, and Georgia all lost their jobs due to alleged misuse of Flock cameras. 

Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, has been following technology and privacy issues for over a decade. “The tracking of an individual vehicle, as it moves throughout an area, can reveal very deeply personal and private information, not only about the vehicle but the person operating it,” Marlow said. “That is Flock at its most dangerous.” (Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Six years ago, Mother Jones’ Daniel Moattar detailed how some of California’s most populous counties were collecting information using ALPRs—mostly tracking people who weren’t even under suspicion of any crime. And in 2013, the ACLU said that just 47 of every million plates scanned by Maryland ALPRs that year “were even tentatively associated with actual serious crimes.” 

But in the years since then, police use of ALPRs has increased across the country. The cameras have been used to go after immigrants without warrants, and to track people seeking abortions as they travel across state lines for the procedure. Though there are several companies that make ALPRs, Flock is by far the largest, with more than 80,000 cameras spread throughout the United States. Flock’s CEO, Garrett Langley, has said he wants his cameras “on every corner.”

But the backlash against Flock and other ALPRs is growing. The technology, activists say, holds potential for misuse. And even when it’s used as intended, some researchers say the company’s data sharing practices lead to privacy rights violations. Throughout 2025, at least 30 municipalities canceled their Flock contracts. Grassroots groups such as DeFlock have built maps showing the public where these license-plate readers are located. (Langley called DeFlock and other activists “terroristic” last year, and apologized this week.) 

And Marlow of the ACLU expects the pushback to keep getting louder. “In these incredibly divisive political times, we’re actually seeing the rare issue that unites Americans: opposition to government surveillance,” Marlow said. “And I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I think this movement is only going to grow.”