Federal judge calls Flock ‘indiscriminate mass surveillance’

A federal judge determined that a Tulsa, Oklahoma sheriff’s deputy infringed on a woman’s Fourth Amendment rights by using Flock Safety to look up her license plate without obtaining a warrant.

According to 404 Media, the decision does not establish a binding precedent, yet it represents one of the earliest instances in which a federal judge has declared a Flock search unconstitutional.

Judge Sara Hill stated that the deputy should have secured a warrant before querying the Flock database for the woman’s license plate, noting that he had “no apparent reason” for the search other than the fact that her vehicle bore a California license plate.

The deputy then relied on the woman’s travel history from Flock to justify a search of her vehicle, during which he allegedly uncovered 91 pounds of methamphetamine. Judge Hill, however, wrote that any evidence obtained after the Flock search must be suppressed as the fruit of a poisonous tree.

Judge Hill also criticized warrantless searches of the Flock database, writing that tracking individuals’ locations — even in public places — is “constitutionally problematic when law enforcement can indiscriminately and passively catalog your whereabouts over an extended period and then use that data for any purpose whenever convenient.”

“This constitutes a form of indiscriminate mass surveillance,” Hill wrote. “It does not focus on a single person, as in Carpenter v. United States, a Supreme Court case concerning government access to cell‑phone location data. It is a system that gathers data on every vehicle that passes any network‑connected camera at any time and provides that information to law enforcement on demand.”

Hill joins a growing coalition of Flock critics spanning the political spectrum. Several local and state governments — including Florida and Texas — have announced they will discontinue use of the technology. On Friday, Senator Bernie Sanders, a Democrat from Vermont, introduced the Block Flock Act, legislation that would prohibit federal agencies from employing automated license‑plate readers such as Flock.

Flock CEO Garretty Langley — who is scheduled for an on‑stage interview at TechCrunch Disrupt — has called for a “compromise” between privacy and safety and apologized to women who have been stalked by law‑enforcement officers using the Flock system. Amid the cancellations, Flock has also reportedly offered voluntary employee buyouts to reduce its workforce.

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