Police officers across the US are using automated license plate readers (ALPRs) to stalk personal romantic interests.

According to an analysis by the Institute for Justice, there are already 14 cases across the country where cops are alleged to have abused ALPR access to follow spouses, exes, and even complete strangers.

The timing is striking, with the majority of the stalking cases coming after 2024 — the year when AI-ALRP company Flock Safety initiated a massive expansion into over 4,000 US cities. Though Flock is claims to have internal safeguards to prevent this kind of abuse, the bulk of the 14 cases were uncovered by the victims, as opposed to the company or internal police investigations.

In Milwaukee, for example, an eight-year veteran of the Milwaukee Police Department named Josue Ayala resigned after allegedly using Flock to track his romantic partner, as well as the romantic partner’s ex, almost 180 times over just two months. The two victims only became aware they were being stalked after one of them looked up their license plate on the auditing site HaveIBeenFlocked.com.

Today, Flock operates in over 6,000 cities across the US, with over 76,000 license plate readers and counting. Given the proliferation of license plate readers and the power dynamics at play — police watch out for one another, after all — it’s not hard to imagine the number of active ALRP abuse cases are actually much higher.

“The fundamental problem with these systems is that they place private information about people’s movements over time in the hands of every officer,” said Michael Soyfer, an Institute for Justice attorney whose work involves challenging ALPR expansions. “Without the constitutional safeguard of a warrant requirement, that predictably allows officers to abuse their access to these systems for things like stalking romantic partners.”

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