ACCPD continues using Flock mass surveillance despite abuses

Two weeks ago, Athens-Clarke County police revealed serious abuses of the Flock mass surveillance system perpetrated by Nick Barker, a former ACCPD employee. In response, ACC Police Chief Jerry Saulters fired Barker and issued an executive order limiting police access to the Flock system temporarily. Saulters also created a team to examine the vulnerabilities of the Flock system and make suggestions for how to strengthen security going forward.

Will these reforms be enough to stop future abuses of the Flock system in Athens? 

Probably not, according to ACC Mayor-Elect Dexter Fisher. 

“Every organization sometimes has bad apples. There’s nothing you can do sometimes about that,” Fisher told Saulters at last week’s commission meeting. “Those things happen, but I appreciate that we’re trying to show improvement.”

Despite the risk, ACCPD will continue using the Flock system and other mass surveillance tools. Fisher himself is a strong proponent of Flock cameras and of the Real Time Crime Center, ACCPD’s mass surveillance hub. He feels that mass surveillance, and the abuses that sometimes come with it, has become a normal part of everyday life in the United States.

“Everybody is saying ‘we’re being surveilled.’ Well, you’re being surveilled when you go to the grocery store and buy stuff,” Fisher said with a lack of concern. “Everywhere we go, we get surveilled.”

Fisher’s support of mass surveillance contrasts with actions taken by local and state leaders across the country. Hundreds of municipalities have canceled their Flock contracts over the past five years, according to Secure Justice, an Oakland-based advocacy group. The bulk of these cancellations have occurred in the last eight months. 

In recent weeks, Texas Governor Greg Abbott banned state agencies from spending money on Flock cameras. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis made an even stronger statement in favor of privacy rights in August when he ordered the removal of Flock cameras from all state highways. Following suit, some counties in Florida have also removed Flock cameras from roads they control.

While mass surveillance does help police solve crimes, including some violent crimes that may be difficult to solve in any other way, abuses of the system are numerous and can erode public confidence in law enforcement as an institution. Here in Athens, Saulters says that public trust is his “number one priority” and that police must work to “tighten up this system” if they are to continue using it. 

In this article, APN will review both the risks of mass surveillance and the ways that ACCPD is attempting to mitigate those risks.

How Flock mass surveillance operates
How the Flock system is abused
How ACCPD is reforming their use of the Flock system
Community doubts about mass surveillance

How Flock mass surveillance operates

Flock Group, Inc. is an Atlanta-based surveillance company founded in 2017. Since then, it has become the most prominent seller of Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) data across the country, particularly in Georgia. Flock has a number of products including 24/7 streaming cameras and other technologies, but in this article we will focus on their flagship product, data produced from a network of license plate readers.

Currently, DeFlock.org lists over 100 license plate readers active in the immediate Athens area. These are cameras that face the road, taking pictures of license plates as cars pass by. Artificial intelligence reads the plate numbers off the images and inputs them into a database that tracks the locations of nearly every vehicle on the road in Athens, every day, all the time.

Police make use of our location data in various ways, including tracking suspects and finding missing persons, but the most common use is to find stolen cars and to help arrest known felons, according to ACCPD Deputy Chief Harrison Daniel. “About 4% of our Flock success cases are missing persons. About 69% are felony cases, [split] between felony arrests and stolen vehicle recoveries,” Daniel told the Public Safety Civilian Oversight Board last month.

However, Flock’s main business model does not include selling the license plate readers it manufactures. Instead, it offers access to the data these devices collect via a subscription service marketed to police departments, businesses, homeowners associations and other groups. ACCPD has used license plate readers since 2015, but started pursuing a contract with Flock in 2020. In 2021, ACCPD paid $2,500 per year for an annual subscription to the data harvested by one of these cameras. ACCPD currently pays for subscriptions to 30 Flock cameras, according to Saulters, which would bring the total to at least $75,000 a year, assuming the same unit price.

Most of the Flock cameras in Athens don’t operate at the request of ACCPD, but rather at the request of private organizations and other government agencies such as the ACC Department of Leisure Services. Flock grants ACCPD access to the data it pays for, as well the data collected by the other cameras in its nationwide network as long as those customers agree to share the data with law enforcement, as most do. This provides ACCPD access to a vast surveillance network at a relatively low cost, giving it the ability to track a stolen car even if it heads out of Athens or out of state.

In return, ACCPD grants many other agencies across the state and across the country access to the data that it pays for. With ACCPD’s permission, Flock shares our data with hundreds or thousands of other local and state law enforcement agencies, but Daniel says that ACCPD does not allow sharing this data with federal agencies. ACCPD has shared data with police departments as far away as Pittsboro, Indiana, according to records obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Recent reporting by WSB-TV in Atlanta found that Flock camera data harvested in Dunwoody, Georgia had been searched more than 17 million times because Dunwoody is part of Flock’s nationwide sharing network to over 6,000 agencies. When an officer anywhere in the US queries a specific license plate number, the entire network is searched, including Dunwoody and possibly also cameras in Athens, depending on permissions set by ACCPD, UGA PD and every other law enforcement agency here that pays for a Flock subscription.

Flock claims on its website that its customers own and determine how the license plate data that Flock sells them is used. But in a memorandum of understanding between ACCPD and Flock signed in 2021, Flock wrote that it “retain[s] all right, title and interest in and to the Flock Service, and its components and any recordings or data provided by Flock through the Flock Service [emphasis added].”

How the Flock system is abused

Stalking

Barker’s ex-wife approached Athens police on August 27, informing them that she suspected him of misusing the Flock system to locate her vehicle. While ACCPD had recently completed an audit of their usage of the Flock system and found no wrongdoing, the agency took the complaint seriously and immediately began an investigation.

In just a few hours, ACCPD analysts found that Barker had misused the Flock system “numerous” times over the course of several months in 2025. Barker was fired, the GBI was notified and a criminal investigation is now underway.

UPDATE (9/10/26): Barker was arrested for misuse of the Flock system and booked into the ACC jail yesterday at 9:15 am. He was released on bond the same day at 3:55 pm.

Unfortunately, misusing the system to stalk a significant other is a fairly common offense among police officers in Georgia who use Flock on a daily basis. According to the Institute for Justice’s database of Flock abuse, Georgia is the leading state in the nation for police abuse of the Flock system. Police have abused Flock data in dozens of incidents that we know of like Barker’s in cities across the state, most of which were revealed over the past year.

For example, Gwinnett County has fired and arrested three officers this year for misuse of the Flock system, one of which was accused of stalking and battery of a former romantic partner. Four police officers were arrested this year for Flock abuse in Savannah, five were arrested this year in Albany, three Sheriff’s deputies were arrested this year for stalking romantic partners in Macon, three deputies were arrested this year in Cherokee County, one investigator was arrested this year for stalking in the Ogeechee Circuit District Attorney’s Office and one deputy was arrested this year for stalking in Richmond County, among many other examples.

Immigration enforcement

While Flock maintains that it does not work or share data with federal agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the truth is that police do at times search Flock data on behalf of the federal government. This is true even in some areas where local or state laws or policies prohibit cooperation with ICE, such as in Virginia and California. Closer to home, Atlanta police have also been found to share data with ICE despite agency claims to the contrary. Advocacy groups in New York have uncovered similar instances in which local police have searched the Flock database for the purposes of immigration enforcement and then shared the data with ICE.

Because Flock data is so easily shared, in some of these cases immigration searches have been performed directly by federal agencies without authorization.

Investigating women for abortions

In at least one instance, the Flock system has also been misused to target women who have had abortions.

In 2025, Sheriff’s deputies in Johnson County, Texas searched Flock’s database as part of an abortion investigation, then later lied about it according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The Sheriff’s office claimed that the search was to find a missing person, a fabrication that Flock repeated on its website and maintains even after the EFF revealed documents showing it to be false.

In Texas, abortion is against the law, but it is completely legal in both Washington and Illinois – two places where some of the Flock cameras in the search were located. This raises questions about the legality of the search itself.

The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office initiated the investigation after the woman’s partner reported that she had attempted to use an abortion pill to terminate her pregnancy. The woman was never charged, but the woman’s partner was later charged with domestic violence against her, which is how the EFF was able to learn more about her case.

Alleged poor security of Flock cameras

Benn Jordan, a musician, YouTuber and privacy rights advocate, released an influential video on Flock last year in which he reviewed the analysis of Jon Gaines, a cyber-security researcher. Gaines found nine vulnerabilities in Flock’s Falcon cameras (the most commonly-used model), four of which he flagged as “critical.”

While it is theoretically possible that the Falcon cameras Gaines legally obtained were different in some crucial way than the cameras Flock installs for customers, Jordan found that he was able to replicate Gaines’ findings. For example, Jordan was able to gain wireless access and complete control over the camera simply by pressing a rear button. This would allow hackers to gain access to the camera’s data or to install malware on the device with ease.

In December, Jordan released another video in which he claimed that he was also able to gain access to a number of live-streaming Flock Condor cameras – cameras actually in use on American streets – which were not protected by as much as a password. One of these completely unprotected cameras, according to Jordan, was pointed at a playground.

404 Media was able to replicate Jordan’s discovery, finding and legally gaining access to 60 live-streaming Flock Condor cameras, no hacking required.

US Congressman Joaquin Castro has recently criticized Flock mass surveillance as a threat to our national security because of the ease with which these cameras could potentially be hacked by a hostile foreign power.

In November, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi and Senator Ron Wyden called for an investigation into Flock for “failing to implement cybersecurity protections, allowing Americans’ personal data to be exposed for hackers, criminals and spies to steal.”

How ACCPD is reforming their use of the Flock system

Barker’s abuse of the Flock mass surveillance system may now be seen in its full context as merely one abuse among many. But the question about why Barker’s misdeeds weren’t discovered earlier remains unanswered thus far in this article. Why did it take an entire year and a tip from a civilian for ACCPD to realize something was wrong?

Back in 2025, as Barker was either in the process of or had recently completed abusing the Flock system, he told APN that there were “very strict guardrails” that would prevent the technology from being misused by bad actors. “Every click of a button is audited,” he said.

The truth is that while Barker’s team may have been conducting some minor audits on their own (if anything he says is believable at this point), ACCPD did not seriously audit Flock data until 2026. “Our audit system took effect in December 2025 and, therefore, was not in effect when Mr. Barker misused the system,” Daniel told APN.

If that’s true, it would mean that ACCPD has been using mass surveillance tools for a decade without proper safeguards in place to prevent abuse. It’s unclear what a comprehensive audit of the last ten years of ACCPD’s use of license plate readers would reveal.

Saulters’ executive order

Saulters issued an executive order on August 31 limiting access to the Flock mass surveillance system to ACCPD officers of rank lieutenant or above. Lieutenants must also gain approval for any searches from an officer of rank captain or higher. 

Saulters’ executive order also says that the Flock system should not be used for immigration enforcement, routine traffic enforcement or for personal or political reasons, which has always been ACCPD’s policy.

At last week’s commission meeting, Commissioner Patrick Davenport wondered if the slight limitations on mass surveillance enacted by Saulters would be “cumbersome” to Athens police. “I don’t think it is,” Saulters replied. “I think, at the end of the day, we need to show that we are accountable to this community and this body.”

The limitations in Saulters’ executive order will remain until he issues a more permanent set of suggestions to ACC Manager Robert Cowell about how the Flock system should be regulated in Athens.

Community doubts about mass surveillance

Despite Saulters’ order, some in the community, including members of the ACC Public Safety Civilian Oversight Board, continue to have concerns about Flock as a company and about mass surveillance as a concept.

Last week, ACC Board of Education member Tim Denson asked commissioners to stop mass surveillance by ACCPD.

“We don’t need to be surveilled 24/7 and keep going down the slippery slope that this is opening up,” Denson urged. “We can either be on the forefront of this and do what our community is asking us to do [end mass surveillance], or we can keep on having mistakes happen and inevitably having to do it once we’ve already damaged the trust of this community further.”

Even before Barker was fired – in fact, just one day before – ACC Public Safety Civilian Oversight Board members met to discuss their concerns about Flock cameras and other forms of mass surveillance in Athens. While oversight board members differed on their perceptions of the dangers and benefits of mass surveillance as a whole, opinions expressed about Flock Group, Inc. were uniformly negative among members not otherwise holding a government position.

“The technology has to be managed carefully, I think. But the company itself, Flock, I have no confidence in,” said Kevin O’Neil, one member of the oversight board.

Another oversight board member, Donald Wakeford, made a prophetic statement underscoring the difficulty of regulating mass surveillance tools operating at scale.

“The people who are going to misuse this system, maybe they’re not stupid, but they’re not going to be thinking rationally if they’re using this for personal purposes in order to stalk or harass someone,” he said. “There will come a time when somebody will have the ability and the inclination to abuse the system because it’s so powerful.”

Unbeknownst to Wakeford, that time had already come in Athens.

Lane Pratt, chair of the ACC Public Safety Civilian Oversight Board, told APN that he doesn’t have confidence that ACCPD will be able to stop abuse of the Flock system because of the sheer number of potentially vulnerable access points.

“A networked system of cameras across the entire nation is impossible to guardrail adequately,” Pratt said. “One bad actor can cause immense damage very quickly because they are benefiting from every other camera across the entire system.”

Pratt supports strong audits of ACCPD’s use of the Flock system, but also urges much deeper reforms, including potentially ending the use of mass surveillance technology altogether. “Audits by their nature are only catching things after they’ve occurred and the damage is already done. As far as guardrails go, it’s better than never finding out, but not sufficient,” he said.

In the future, Pratt says that the ACC Public Safety Civilian Oversight Board will likely be developing recommendations for the mayor and commission about how to handle new technologies, including license plate readers, facial recognition and artificial intelligence going forward. 

Yet, unless there is a significant shift in policy when Fisher takes office as mayor next year (which seems unlikely), ACCPD will continue to use Flock and other forms of mass surveillance, albeit with some additional safeguards. This means that police will have help in solving certain crimes, but it may also mean putting Athenians at risk of stalking and other abuses by criminal hackers, unethical ACCPD employees or by anyone in any of the numerous agencies Athens’ data is shared with.

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