Overview
- Two New Bedford officers were fired, city officials announced Thursday after an internal audit found one officer ran a single plate 658 times and another ran a plate 68 times while both allegedly used the Flock system for personal tracking.
- New Bedford shut its Flock cameras in August, the City Council voted to ban the system and the department is carrying out a wider audit while officials draft local rules for any future use.
- San Diego’s Budget and Government Efficiency Committee voted to end the city’s Flock contract but the full City Council must act and the mayor could veto that decision; the San Diego Police Department also removed the generic “other” search reason from its ALPR system.
- Records from La Mesa show more than 3 million plate scans over seven months and that outside agencies queried the city’s 20 cameras thousands of times, illustrating how Flock’s network lets remote users search local feeds.
- The cases add to a national push for limits on Flock’s connected ALPR network through audits, lawsuits and proposed rules that aim to tighten data retention, require case‑linked search reasons and curb cross‑jurisdiction sharing.