One Fatal Accountability Flaw for Flock
The Point of No Return
If Flock ever had any chance of redemption, it has destroyed it with recent actions. Previously, logs sent across the country contained everything that would be needed for an agency to audit another agency and make sure their cameras weren't being abused. Flock recently made it so now even the cops can't audit other cops. They redact the same fields our clerk's office has that prevent any form of accountability. If this change had been done a year and a half ago, we would not have been able to hold JPD accountable the way we did. Now the searches are only identifiable by the agency performing the search, timeframe searched, and the time the search was performed. This is not enough to identify a rogue officer or compromised user account.
Even if you support Flock, the design they have implemented is inherently flawed, and they are only working towards making it worse as evidenced by their actions moving away from accountability. Flock also has no built in compliance for helping agencies comply with state law. Flock themselves state this is up to the Agency and it's why JPD is currently receiving LPR data from IL agencies in a likely violation of IL state law. This system cannot be allowed to exist in this form. It is too dangerous without enough advantages and safeguards. Not to mention we have no idea how we hold the police accountable for their potential capability for live viewing of cameras. Although the Chief claims they cannot view the raw video, Flock released an update last year that allows live streaming from their LPRs. This is officially documented on Flock's website as a free update.
Our message to police is this: If you want to watch us, then we want be able to watch you watching us. If we can't ensure accountability by all agencies, the system is not acceptable and more abuse is only a matter of time. Before Flock's log change, this might have been possible if the Police turned on the transparency portal with unique identifiers for all fields, but now it is not possible even if they want to do that.
Update 1/18/2026: We acknowledge it is possible Seneca is performing audits and not retaining any record of such. This would be pretty strange and not very comforting, but it is possible.