How to check if your car has been searched by Flock cameras

A new website lets drivers see if their vehicle has been looked up using Flock’s surveillance camera system — amidst growing backlash over the company’s sprawling network of automated cameras. The “Have I Been Flocked” site compiles Flock Safety’s audit logs, allowing drivers to look up their license plate number to see if authorities — or someone else — has run their information through the system. If a person’s license plate appears in the database, it means their plate was photographed and that an operator on the Flock system looked up that license plate using the surveillance system. Operators are not necessarily law enforcement officers, and searches do not mean that a driver was stopped or investigated, according to the HaveIBeenFlocked site. The site does not say when a vehicle passed one of Flock’s estimated 120,000-plus cameras. The data from the cameras has been made available through Freedom of Information Act requests. open image in gallery A website ‘HaveIbeenFlocked’ allows drivers to look up their license plate and see if their vehicle has been looked up in the surveillance system (Getty) HaveIBeenFlocked also tracks reasons for Flock searches based on public records, with the most common reason being related to drugs, and then motor vehicle theft. License plate numbers searched on the website are not saved, the website notes. Flock Safety, which operates a growing network of automated cameras across the country, with law enforcement customers in every state except Alaska able to access Flock’s data for investigations. However, some have described the company’s practices as Big Brother-like, amid multiple reports that some law enforcement officers have misused the system to stalk their partners and ex-partners. There are also privacy and Fourth Amendment concerns that come with tracking people and their vehicles. In North Carolina, a police officer was fired and later arrested for using the Flock system to track her boyfriend’s ex-wife more than 30 times. Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley told Newsweek last week that his company’s “end goal isn’t a dystopian future of surveillance; it’s one where we all feel safe.” open image in gallery Flock has received some backlash over reports that law enforcement officers have misused the system to stalk people (Getty) Langley noted that the technology can help find missing people, recover stolen vehicles and solve crime. According to him, 1,000 missing people were detected through the system in July.