Flock’s FreeForm—cops now track people, not just cars
In Brief
- Police used Flock’s FreeForm tool hundreds of times to search for specific people, not cars, 404 Media reports.
- FreeForm launched in February 2025 and lets officers type natural-language prompts like “person on skateboard.”
- LAPD paused its Flock contract in July 2026, and an ACLU audit found searches justified with “hehehe.”
Police departments used Flock’s license-plate cameras to hunt for people, not vehicles. Departments ran FreeForm natural-language searches for specific individuals at least hundreds of times, 404 Media reports, citing internal records and officer accounts.
FreeForm launched in February 2025 and lets officers describe a person in plain language. Prompts included “heavy-set male with a black and white hat,” “person on skateboard,” and “person wearing orange vest and construction hat.” Anne Arundel County, Maryland, searched 198 networks for a “white jeep with trump flag.”
Some prompts referenced a target’s race or political signs. Atlanta police searched for a “non-Caucasian male in blue shirt/pants/white hat,” and Flock says FreeForm has guardrails that block searches on race, ethnicity, religion, or nationality while alerting agency administrators, the EFF reports.
The mission creep is documented. Flock left at least 60 Condor people-tracking cameras exposed to the open internet in December 2025, and in May 2025 planned to use hacked data to “jump from LPR to person” before scrapping it. The pattern echoes earlier Amazon facial recognition pushback, and mirrors ICE’s Palantir neighborhood-mapping work.
FreeForm Tracks People, Not Cars
Flock pitches its cameras as a tool to recover stolen cars and find missing kids. Critics call that a bait-and-switch: a town bought a license-plate reader and got a people-search engine. Flock says FreeForm is not facial recognition and cannot identify a person by name, verify identity, or search for a specific face.
Abuse is already on the record. The Drive reported in June that Flock knew of 15 incidents of police misusing its database, including officers stalking an ex-partner and running hundreds of “test” searches. Journalists built HaveIBeenFlocked, a searchable database of Flock search activity.
Watchdogs Lose Trust
The ACLU says Flock repeatedly misled city councils and the public, including over ICE’s indirect access to Flock data via law-enforcement customers. An ACLU of Massachusetts audit found one Oregon department entered “investigation” 111 times and “hehehe” 20 times as search justifications in a single month, the ACLU says.
LAPD paused its Flock contract in July 2026 over data-handling concerns. Its inspector general counted 298 pole-mounted readers and more than 1,600 on patrol cars, and a review tied 161 traffic stops to ALPR errors. Ventura County found out-of-state agencies accessed its Flock data more than 364,000 times in two months without approval, CBS News reports.
FAQ
What is Flock FreeForm?
FreeForm is Flock’s natural-language search layer over its license-plate camera network, letting officers describe a person or vehicle in plain text instead of querying a plate.
Does FreeForm use facial recognition?
Flock says no. The company states FreeForm cannot identify a person by name, verify identity, or search for a specific face.
How has police use strayed?
Records show searches for people by appearance and political signs, stalking by officers, and justification fields filled with joke text like “hehehe.”
Which departments pulled back?
LAPD paused its Flock contract in July 2026, and audits in Massachusetts and California flagged widespread misuse and out-of-state data access. Flock launched FreeForm in February 2025.
