FLOCK eff 2025 abuses review
page 1 / 3
EFF — EFF's Investigations Expose Flock Safety's Surveillance Abuses: 2025 in Review
retrieved 2026-07-11
archived for offline mesh reading
------------------------------------------------------------
Skip to main content
- About
- Contact
- Press
- People
- Opportunities
- Issues
- Free Speech
- Privacy
- Creativity and Innovation
- Transparency
- International
- Security
- Artificial Intelligence
- Our Work
- Deeplinks Blog
- Press Releases
- Events
- Legal Cases
- Whitepapers
- Podcasts
- Annual Reports
- Take Action
- Action Center
- Volunteer
- Follow EFF
- Tools
- Privacy Badger
- Surveillance Self-Defense
- Certbot
- Atlas of Surveillance
- Cover Your Tracks
- Street Level Surveillance
- apkeep
- Shop
- Donate
- Donate to EFF
- Shop
- Giving Societies
- Sponsorships
- Other Ways to Give
- Membership FAQ
Email updates on news, actions,
and events in your area.
Join EFF Lists
- Copyright (CC BY)
- Trademark
- Privacy Policy
- Thanks
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Donate
If you use technology, this fight is yours.Donate today
EFFecting Change: If You Own It, Why Can't You Fix It? on July 23
Electronic Frontier Foundation
- About
- Contact
- Press
- People
- Opportunities
- Issues
- Free Speech
- Privacy
- Creativity and Innovation
- Transparency
- International
- Security
- Artificial Intelligence
- Our Work
- Deeplinks Blog
- Press Releases
- Events
- Legal Cases
- Whitepapers
- Podcasts
- Annual Reports
- Take Action
- Action Center
- Volunteer
- Follow EFF
- Tools
- Privacy Badger
- Surveillance Self-Defense
- Certbot
- Atlas of Surveillance
- Cover Your Tracks
- Street Level Surveillance
- apkeep
- Shop
- Donate
- Donate to EFF
- Shop
- Giving Societies
- Sponsorships
- Other Ways to Give
- Membership FAQ
EFF's Investigations Expose Flock Safety's Surveillance Abuses: 2025 in Review
DEEPLINKS BLOG
By Sarah Hamid
December 30, 2025
EFF's Investigations Expose Flock Safety's Surveillance Abuses: 2025 in Review
Share It
Share on Mastodon
Share on Bluesky
Share on Facebook
Copy link
Throughout 2025, EFF conducted groundbreaking investigations into Flock Safety's automated license plate reader (ALPR) network, revealing a system designed to enable mass surveillance and susceptible to grave abuses. Our research sparked state and federal investigations, drove landmark litigation, and exposed dangerous expansion into always-listening voice detection technology. We documented how Flock's surveillance infrastructure allowed law enforcement to track protesters exercising their First Amendment rights, target Romani people with discriminatory searches, and surveil women seeking reproductive healthcare.
Flock Enables Surveillance of Protesters
When we obtained datasets representing more than 12 million searches logged by more than 3,900 agencies between December 2024 and October 2025, the patterns were unmistakable. Agencies logged hundreds of searches related to political demonstrations—the 50501 protests in February, Hands Off protests in April, and No Kings protests in June and October. Nineteen agencies conducted dozens of searches specifically tied to No Kings protests alone. Sometimes searches explicitly referenced protest activity; other times, agencies used vague terminology to obscure surveillance of constitutionally protected speech.
The surveillance extended beyond mass demonstrations. Three agencies used Flock's system to target activists from Direct Action Everywhere, an animal-rights organization using civil disobedience to expose factory farm conditions. Delaware State Police queried the Flock network nine times in March 2025 related to Direct Action Everywhere actions—showing how ALPR surveillance targets groups engaged in activism challenging powerful industries.
Biased Policing and Discriminatory Searches
Our November analysis revealed deeply troubling patterns: more than 80 law enforcement agencies used language perpetuating harmful stereotypes against Romani people when searching the nationwide Flock Safety ALPR network. Between June 2024 and October 2025, police performed hundreds of searches using terms such as "roma" and racial slurs—often without mentioning any suspected crime.
Audit logs revealed searches including "roma traveler," "possible g*psy," and "g*psy ruse." Grand Prairie Police Department in Texas searched for the slur six times while using Flock's "Convoy" feature, which identifies vehicles traveling together—essentially targeting an entire traveling community without specifying any crime. According to a 2020 Harvard University survey, four out of 10 Romani Americans reported being subjected to racial profiling by police. Flock's system makes such discrimination faster and easier to execute at scale.
Weaponizing Surveillance Against Reproductive Rights