From Policy to Detection: Accreditation, Audit Maturity, and the Governance of Law-Enforcement ALPR Misuse An Exploratory Comparative Study of Flock Safety Oversight in U.S. Law-Enforcement Agencies

Automated license plate recognition systems now form a significant part of contemporary law-enforcement information infrastructure. Through networked ALPR platforms, authorized personnel can search vehicle-location data gathered over wide geographic areas and, depending on the system’s configuration and interagency agreements, access information from cameras not operated directly by the agency conducting the search. These systems are highly useful for investigations, yet that very capability creates a separate accountability problem. Someone can have legitimate technical access and still use it to conduct an unauthorized, personal, or otherwise improper search. Authorization and accountability are not the same thing. Authorization controls govern who may use the system and the purposes for which it may be used; accountability controls address whether violations of those permissions can be observed, reviewed, and detected. Recent, publicly documented cases of Flock Safety misuse make it possible to examine this distinction empirically. Routine or proactive internal audits uncovered some incidents, while others came to light through complaints, external law-enforcement investigations, citizens reviewing public records, investigative journalism, or newly activated technical auditing tools. The different ways these cases surfaced point to a broader governance question: what allows ALPR misuse to be detected? This study builds on the author’s earlier conceptual work on ALPR governance, shifting the focus from policy architecture to empirical observation using public sources. The question is not whether accreditation or policy can stop every instance of misconduct. Rather, it asks whether governance arrangements establish recurring, auditable mechanisms for detecting misuse and prompting corrective action.