Here's a riddle: Why did a Goshen Police Department officer search 6,474 automated license plate reader (ALPR) networks, representing data from 82,413 cameras, on May 7, 2025?
If your answer is "I don't know," it turns out you're 100% correct. The officer left the letters "idk" in the search field where cops are supposed to document the reason for the search.
When law enforcement and tech salespeople pitch ALPRs to city councils, they stick to a familiar script. They trumpet the technology, which is often provided by private companies like
Flock Safety,
Motorola Solutions
, or
Axon
, as an essential tool for solving high-stakes crimes, such as car jacking, kidnapping, or murder.
But when you strip away the carefully
curated talking points
, the data continues to reveal a different (and frankly, ridiculous) story. An EFF analysis of ALPR search logs from Flock Safety systems shows that officers across the country are spying on drivers for completely nonsensical "reasons." Police are routinely searching the Flock database without providing any legitimate justification, making a mockery of our civil liberties by logging reasons like "LOL" (short for “laugh out loud”), "LMAO" (short for "laughing my ass off"), "sexy," and "idk" (short for “I don’t know”) to access sensitive ALPR location data.
And in some cases, officers are just mashing keyboard buttons rather than articulating the nature of their searches.
Flock Safety claims it has improved its system by requiring officers to select from a
dropdown
list of crimes before running a search–but that only makes it easier for officers to hide improper searches behind the veneer of uniformity. The system does not require proof that the dropdown reason actually matches the true purpose of the search.
With no warrant requirements, limited guardrails, and deficient audit processes, ALPR databases have fostered a culture of unrestricted access to everyone’s location information. This culture of abuse has al
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