Police License Plate Networks Used for School Enrollment Checks, Background Investigations, and Noise Complaints, EFF Finds
An EFF analysis of millions of Flock Safety ALPR searches reveals law enforcement using crime-fighting surveillance tools for school residency fraud checks, employment background investigations, and noise complaints — with no warrant required.
Overview
A new investigation by the Electronic Frontier Foundation has documented a pattern of law enforcement agencies using Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader network — a system marketed as a crime-fighting tool — to conduct warrantless surveillance for purposes ranging from school enrollment disputes to noise complaints and employment background checks. According to the EFF report, published on May 26, 2026, the absence of any federal warrant requirement for ALPR database searches has enabled this expansion of use cases well beyond the criminal investigations the technology was ostensibly built to support.
What We Know
School Residency Verification
The most striking finding in the EFF investigation concerns Buford City Schools, a Georgia district of approximately 6,000 students. Between January 2025 and March 2026, school police logged more than 375 ALPR searches where officers listed school residency verification — or simply “RV” — as the stated purpose, according to the EFF. Those searches accounted for more than half of all ALPR database queries logged by the district during that period. In just the first three months of 2026, approximately three-quarters of all searches were residency-related. Some of those queries reached across more than 5,800 different camera networks nationwide.
A school spokesperson explained the practice to the EFF: “[B]ecause Buford City Schools is a highly sought-after district, we experience ongoing challenges with residency fraud.”
Buford was not alone. The EFF investigation identified similar residency verification searches at Delhi Township Police Department in Ohio (35 searches across five schools during spring 2025), and at Cortland Police Department in Ohio, Lincoln Police Department in Alabama, Ridgeland Police Department in Mississippi, Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office in South Carolina, Manteno Police Department in Illinois, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, and Mora County Sheriff’s Office in New Mexico.
The real-world consequences of ALPR-based residency checks were illustrated by a separate case in the Chicago suburbs. Thalía Sánchez, a mother who moved into a home in Alsip, Illinois in December 2024, was denied enrollment for her daughter at Alsip Hazelgreen Oak Lawn School District 126 multiple times despite filing what The Register described as “all the required documents,” including a mortgage statement, vehicle registration, utility bills, and her driver’s license. The district cited license plate recognition data showing her vehicle at Chicago addresses during July and August of the prior year. Sánchez maintains she loaned her car to a relative during that period.
The district had contracted with Thomson Reuters Clear — a commercial LPR tool that, according to NBC Chicago, “links nationwide location information, including surveillance camera data, with vehicle ownership data” — for $41,904 over a 36-month term beginning December 2024. Its website stated: “District 126 uses the CLEAR software program as a component of our residency verification process.”
Sánchez told NBC Chicago: “I do not understand. Why am I being denied something so important, which is a child’s education. I am living here, I do pay taxes, I contribute to all those things and I don’t have access to that [public school].”
Thomson Reuters marketed the product with the claim: “Accurate residency verification does more than protect the financial health of public schools—it safeguards the trust and equity at the heart of public education.”
Employment Background Checks and Noise Complaints
Beyond school enrollment, the EFF analysis found law enforcement agencies logging ALPR searches explicitly labeled as employment background investigations. Little Elm Police Department in Texas conducted 10 such searches across 6,306 camera networks, with search logs marked “EMPLOYMENT.” Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office in Missouri ran 6 searches across 2,853 networks labeled “employment.” Ridgeland Police Department in Mississippi ran 2 searches across more than 6,000 networks marked “employment background inv.” Texas City Police Department ran 3 searches across 728 networks marked “pre employment background.” Zion Police Department in Illinois logged one search across 585 networks marked “Employee Background.”
Davidson Police Department in North Carolina similarly logged employment background searches; the department’s chief characterized the label as a “poor choice of words by our investigator.”
The EFF identified 26 agencies that used the nationwide ALPR network to investigate noise complaints — house parties, loud music, and vehicle exhaust — with some searches spanning upwards of 6,500 camera networks.
The Scale of the Flock Safety Network
Flock Safety’s nationwide network is what makes this mission creep particularly consequential. Ridgeland Police Department in Mississippi alone operates more than 50 cameras and maintains access to tens of thousands more through the shared Flock network, according to the EFF. A single database query from any participating agency can reach cameras across thousands of jurisdictions.
The scope of what a single search reveals was summarized by the EFF: “Every time a plate is searched, it can reveal personal information about a family: when they go to the doctor, when they go to worship, when they go to travel on vacation.”
The EFF characterized the unchecked access as having “turned an alleged ‘crime-fighting’ tool into a universal tracker of everyone’s movements” and described the use of the network for administrative tasks as “a convenient shortcut around due process.”
The pattern also extends to traffic enforcement. A separate EFF investigation published in March 2026 documented a Georgia State Patrol officer who ticketed a motorcyclist in December 2025 with a note reading “CAPTURED ON FLOCK CAMERA 31 MM 1 HOLDING PHONE IN LEFT HAND” — a use Flock had explicitly disclaimed in a November 2025 blog post stating its technology “is not used to enforce traffic violations.” By early 2026, the company listed six traffic enforcement partners on its website.
What We Don’t Know
Neither the EFF investigation nor any agency response identified a specific legal basis authorizing the use of ALPR systems for non-criminal administrative purposes such as residency verification or employment screening. The Delhi Township Police Department responded to EFF’s findings by saying “the department will be implementing a change to how these queries are documented in the Flock system and internally” — an answer that addressed recordkeeping, not the underlying legal authority for the searches.
It is also unclear how many school districts nationwide have contracted with Thomson Reuters Clear or similar commercial ALPR services for enrollment verification, nor how many families may have been denied school access based on such data.
Legislative Response
Several states have enacted laws this year targeting ALPR data practices. Oregon Governor Tina Kotek signed Senate Bill 1516 on March 31, 2026, which limits data retention to 30 days unless linked to a criminal inquiry, requires vendors to provide monthly and quarterly audits that are made publicly available, and allows citizens to sue vendors acting “intentionally or with gross negligence” in sharing or selling ALPR data, according to OPB. Ky Fireside, who advocated for the bill, warned that vendors may try to work around the encryption requirement: “The bill requires it, but doesn’t define it. My biggest concern is that these vendors are going to try and skirt that aspect.”
Washington state enacted a companion measure signed March 30, 2026, which Cascadia Daily News reported limits ALPR use to investigating felonies and gross misdemeanors, bans cameras from health care facilities and places of worship, blocks use for immigration enforcement, and prohibits sharing data with out-of-state agencies. Nearly 100 Washington law enforcement agencies and more than 100 private businesses and homeowners associations had deployed Flock Safety systems before the law took effect. The ACLU’s state director noted: “Before this law, there were no regulations.”
Flock Safety itself told Cascadia Daily News: “We are very happy to be regulated.”
No federal legislation requiring warrants for ALPR database searches has been enacted.