Overview
- San Jose police say an officer used his personal phone to access the department’s Flock automated license plate reader system and gave vehicle location details to a cousin who was accused of domestic violence, enabling the cousin to find the victim.
- Investigators opened the probe after the victim reported that the suspect seemed to know her location, and the officer was fired in April following a roughly yearlong investigation.
- Neither the officer nor the cousin faces criminal charges because state statutes that bar improper access to confidential law‑enforcement databases do not clearly cover ALPR data, so the case was sent to the California P.O.S.T. for a decertification review instead.
- In response, San Jose banned access to ALPR and other sensitive systems from personal devices, ordered monthly audits, and said it is testing 'smart' audit tools to flag improper searches.
- The episode adds to wider controversy over San Jose’s roughly 500‑camera Flock network and to national scrutiny that has produced lawsuits, contract pauses, vendor audit changes, and calls for explicit criminal laws to curb ALPR misuse.