Georgia Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Misusing Flock Surveillance Data

What the flock is happening in Georgia?

In just a matter of months, 18 law enforcement officers in the Peach State have been arrested for misusing Flock Safety camera data in what seems to be a deeply concerning trend, highlighting the need for stricter oversight of mass surveillance technologies. 

Late last week, the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office, located in metropolitan Atlanta, announced that Sgt. Kabiru Salawu had been fired, arrested, and charged for allegedly misusing Flock license plate reader technology but did not release details on which data were accessed or why, according to USA Today. The 17-year agency veteran faces one year in prison and up to a $5,000 fine for the misdemeanor offense and between one and five years in prison for violating the oath as a public officer, a felony offense. 

Salawu’s arrest marked the 17th law enforcement officer arrested for similar actions across Georgia, including five officers in Albany, four in Richmond County, three in Fayetteville, three in Cherokee County, and one in Greene County, reports USA Today. 

But the number keeps rising, and on Wednesday, a supervisor with the Conyers Police Department’s Real-Time Crime Center, Paige Forte, was arrested for allegedly misusing the Flock license plate reader system over 30 times to search for her domestic partner’s car between April and July, according to WRDW/WAGT, a CBS and NBC affiliate. 

At least some of these arrests, according to a statement released by Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company, can be credited to the company’s Audit Assistance tool announced in April. The latest string of arrests in Georgia, according to Flock, is evidence that these auditing tools are working as intended, exposing misuse by providing “greater transparency, stronger oversight, and an effective way to separate good and bad policing.” 

However, privacy and police accountability advocates say something more needs to be done to protect Americans’ privacy from the growing number of cases involving police surveillance abuse cropping up across the country.  

Flock Safety’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) camera networks have grown quickly over the last few years, and now log over 20 billion data points every month. The data are retained for 30 days and compiled into a searchable database. This means that officers with access to Flock Safety’s vast database can easily track vehicles, and by extension drivers, with shockingly little oversight and no warrant requirement, according to the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm.

“Without the constitutional safeguard of a warrant requirement,” Michael Soyfer, an attorney at I.J. challenging ALPR networks, said in a statement, “that predictably allows officers to abuse their access to these systems for things like stalking romantic partners.” 

Requiring a warrant would force officers to show probable cause, or a reasonable belief that a crime has taken place, before allowing access to ALPR camera network databases and the trove of private information compiled within. This policy would essentially weed out bad actors before police misconduct takes place, rather than catching the abuse after the privacy violation has already occurred. 

Georgia is not the only state where officers have been arrested for misusing license plate data and other police surveillance tools. But the state’s recent 18 arrests, and counting, underscore just how pervasive the problem can be, even with Flock Safety’s auditing tools in place. And without a warrant requirement, which courts have so far declined to impose, cases of police surveillance abuse will likely keep rising.