Flock's Mandatory Audit Assistance Tool Vows to Stop Police Abuse But Offers No Details on How It Works

TL;DR

• Flock Safety has made its new AI-powered Audit Assistance tool mandatory for all law enforcement customers, claiming it will automatically detect and flag misuse of its nationwide license plate reader network.
• The company says the tool has already caught instances of police abuse, but has refused to disclose how the system works, what it flags, or how many violations have been found.
• Privacy advocates and civil liberties groups warn the lack of transparency makes independent oversight impossible, leaving accountability entirely in Flock's hands.

A Network Built on Trust, Now Policing Itself

Flock Safety operates one of the largest surveillance networks in the United States. Its automated license plate readers (ALPRs) are now deployed in more than 5,000 communities across 40+ states, capturing billions of vehicle detections each month for local police, sheriff's departments, and homeowner associations. For years, the company has argued that abuse is prevented by requiring officers to enter a case number or reason for every search, with audits left to individual departments.

That hands-off approach is now changing. This month, Flock confirmed it has rolled out a new system called Audit Assistance and is making it mandatory for every law enforcement agency that uses its platform. The tool, according to Flock, is designed to do what human supervisors rarely did: proactively monitor every search in real-time and catch misuse before it becomes a pattern.

Flock Says It Already Works — But Won't Show Its Work

In its announcement, Flock described Audit Assistance as an automated safeguard that reviews search justifications, flags improper queries, and alerts agency administrators to potential policy violations. The company told reporters the system has already identified cases of abuse in the field.

What it hasn't provided are any details to back that up. Flock has declined to explain what signals the tool uses to determine a search is improper, whether it relies on AI, keyword analysis, or behavioral modeling, or what threshold triggers an alert. It has also not said how many agencies have received alerts, how many searches were flagged, what kind of misuse was detected, or what consequences followed.

When pressed, the company said the specifics of its detection methods are proprietary and that sharing them could help bad actors evade the system. That explanation has done little to satisfy critics who note that without knowing how abuse is defined, no one outside Flock can know if the tool is actually effective.

Why Police Self-Auditing Failed in the First Place

The need for a stronger audit system is well documented. While Flock requires officers to provide a reason for searching its database — such as a stolen vehicle, warrant, or missing person case — previous reporting has shown those audit trails were often thin, inconsistent, or never reviewed.

Investigations over the past two years found numerous agencies where officers entered vague justifications like "investigation" or "case related," used the system for personal reasons, or conducted searches with no documented case number at all. In several documented cases, officers used Flock to stalk partners or look up neighbors, with the misuse only discovered months later, if at all, because departments lacked the staff or incentive to regularly audit logs.

Flock has long maintained that it is a technology provider, not a police oversight body, and that auditing is the responsibility of its customers. Audit Assistance represents a significant shift from that stance — an admission that the honor system wasn't working and that automated enforcement is now necessary.

A Black Box for Accountability

For privacy advocates and civil liberties organizations, the new tool raises as many questions as it answers. Groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation argue that replacing one opaque system with another doesn't solve the core problem.

Their central concern is transparency. If Flock alone decides what counts as abuse, how that abuse is detected, and whether to notify an agency — and if neither the public nor independent auditors can verify those decisions — then oversight is still privatized. There is no way to know if the tool is tuned to catch only the most egregious violations while missing more subtle misuse, or whether it produces false positives that desensitize administrators to alerts.

Experts also point to a conflict of interest. Flock's business depends on maintaining good relationships with police departments and expanding its network. Aggressively flagging misuse could create friction with its core customers, while under-flagging would undermine its public claims about accountability. Without external validation, advocates say, there is no way to know where that balance is being struck.

What Flock Isn't Saying

The unanswered questions around Audit Assistance are extensive. Flock has not clarified whether alerts are reviewed by Flock employees before being sent to agencies, whether flagged searches are automatically blocked, or whether agencies are required to act on an alert. It has not said whether it will publish aggregate data on misuse, notify the public when abuse is found, or allow third-party researchers to test the system's accuracy.

The company has also not addressed whether Audit Assistance monitors all types of searches equally, including the newer AI-powered vehicle attribute searches that let officers search by color, make, or other features without a plate number — a capability that dramatically expands what can be tracked.

For now, departments cannot opt out. Flock says the tool is enabled by default and cannot be disabled, positioning it as a mandatory safeguard rather than an optional feature.

The Future of Surveillance Oversight

Flock's move comes as its surveillance footprint continues to grow and as cities and states face mounting pressure to regulate ALPR technology. Several municipalities have recently debated or passed restrictions on how long plate data can be retained, who can access it, and whether it can be shared across state lines, particularly for investigations related to abortion access or immigration enforcement.

In that climate, Flock is attempting to preempt regulation by offering its own solution to the abuse problem. Whether that will be enough remains to be seen. Lawmakers and oversight boards have historically been skeptical of self-regulation by surveillance vendors, and the refusal to disclose how Audit Assistance works is likely to intensify calls for legally mandated, independent audits and public reporting requirements.

Until Flock opens its black box, the promise of Audit Assistance will remain just that — a promise. For a company whose cameras watch millions of Americans every day, critics argue, trust can't be automated. It has to be verified.

AndroGuider Team

Articles written by the AndroGuider team. We try to make them thorough and informational while being easy to read.