Flock Safety claims over 5,000 law enforcement agencies use its license plate readers to help locate missing persons, catch thieves and identify suspicious vehicles. The company is most known for its camera network, which extracts data about cars from photographs and allows operators to search for vehicles by description or license plate number.

But there’s been another persistent, unsanctioned use: officers stalking women.

At least 50 law enforcement officers have been accused or charged with the misuse of Flock or similar tools, and over half of the incidents involve surveillance related to romantic partners, per a recent investigation by The Washington Post. The reports include officers of all genders, but many cases involve a uniformed man stalking a civilian woman — or the people close to her. Forty-six of the cases tallied by The Post involved Flock equipment.

Flock is under fire as stories roll out about how its surveillance network has been used to find a woman who self-managed an abortion, share data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and search for people based on race. The San Francisco Standard found at least 39 Flock contracts have been cancelled in 2026 so far, and community activists across the country continue to push for jurisdictions to ditch more.

But the problem is not only one company. Two law enforcement agencies in Colorado cut ties with Flock, only to shift contracts to Axon, another automatic license plate reader (APLR) vendor. The heart of the matter, advocates say, is this: New surveillance technologies are always appropriated to inflict intimate partner violence. Experts say systems like smart cameras and automated license plate readers are sold to the public as ways to increase safety, but there are few, if any, guardrails to prevent them from becoming tools of domestic violence.

LOVEINT, short for “love intelligence,” entered the lexicon in 2013 when National Security Agency (NSA) officials admitted some employees misused intelligence networks to spy on romantic partners. The revelation came as the country grappled with whistleblower Edward Snowden’s leaks exposing the vast reach of the agency’s surveillance. Snowden also talked about how intimate images stumbled upon by young NSA analysts would travel through the workplace.

Read the full article about Flock cameras being used for stalking by Jasmine Mithani at The 19th.