Opinion: The LAPD's Sudden Exit from Flock Safety is a Security Warning, Not a Civil Liberties Win

Let's be clear: the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) does not suddenly develop a moral compass regarding mass surveillance. But as of Saturday, the LAPD is letting its three-year contract with Flock Safety expire. According to reporting from TechCrunch, ABC7, and the Los Angeles Times, the department is walking away from the Atlanta-based company's license plate tracking services citing "serious concerns" over privacy and civil liberties.

In my view, this isn't a victory for the Fourth Amendment; it's a red flag that the system is leaking. When Dean Gialamas, the LAPD's chief information officer, states that the department must discontinue services until data, privacy, security, and sharing concerns are "ironed out through a contractual relationship," he isn't talking about ethics. He's talking about risk management.

The risk is tangible. TechCrunch reports that researchers have documented an increase in motorists being detained, held at gunpoint, or jailed due to errors and false positives from license plate readers. Just last week, a journalist from The Drive reported being tracked for days and eventually boxed-in by police because a Flock camera mistakenly flagged a review vehicle's plate as stolen.

Beyond the operational failures, the security architecture of Flock Safety appears to be a sieve. TechCrunch notes that lawmakers have called for federal consumer authority investigations into the company for failing to block hackers and spies, specifically warning that many police user logins lack multi-factor authentication. The vulnerability is not theoretical. 404 Media reported a case where they were able to view themselves live on publicly exposed Flock cameras. Even more alarming, 404 Media reported that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration used a local officer's password—without that officer's knowledge—to search for a suspect accused of an immigration violation.

This pattern of instability explains why other jurisdictions, including South Portland, Maine, and Mountain View, California, have also severed ties with Flock. Those cities cited privacy worries and the unauthorized use of cameras by federal immigration officials to bypass local sanctuary city policies.

Flock spokesperson Holly Beilin told TechCrunch the company was "surprised" by the LAPD's decision and believes it can clear up "misconceptions," though the company refused to specify what those misconceptions were. Meanwhile, the LAPD is reportedly seeking new contract language to address data storage and privacy.

For those of us in the defender mindset, the takeaway is simple: the LAPD isn't abandoning surveillance; they are abandoning a leaky bucket. They are waiting for a version of this technology that doesn't expose the department to the same security lapses and operational errors that have plagued Flock's network of 80,000 cameras.