A Cop Searched 19,000 Flock Cameras Across 1,558 Cities. His Reason: 'LMAO'
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reviewed Flock Safety search logs and found officers entering jokes like 'LMAO', 'LOL', and 'idk' into a field meant to justify licence plate searches. One Indiana officer searched over 19,000 cameras across 1,558 cities with the reason 'LMAO'. The EFF also found 6,300+ searches using 'TBD'. Flock later replaced the free-text field with pre-set categories, which the EFF called a loss for transparency.
The 'LMAO' entry does not establish why the officer searched, but it highlights a larger accountability question surrounding a surveillance network capable of searching vehicle data across thousands of communities: how much oversight should be required when police have access to such a broad pool of location information?
- vatsachak
This cop is doing his part to get rid of flock
- josefresco
> July 2025, an officer with the Lake County, Indiana, Sheriff's Department
Do they not know the name of this officer, or are they not reporting it?
- JsonDemWitOster
Naturally I don't know how the Flock search platform operates but this implies to me that this "Reason:" field is a mere formality, after-the-fact accountability (if even that!).
If the search was granted based on human checks for the reason given, they would not dare be flippant about this. Of course it would take more time, humans don't scale, etc. but that's kinda the point: invasive methods should be a last resort.
- ShadowOfThePit
> Data reviewed by the EFF included searches labelled 'LMAO', 'LOL', 'Hehe', 'Haha', 'idk' and 'blah'. Other entries included 'asdfg' and strings of apparently random keyboard characters. In one case, an officer entered: 'robbery I don't remember the case number leave me alone'.
lol wtf. Like, I get it, "haha quirky me", if it was a personal coding project or an informal setting, but not here!? I wouldn't believe if you told me they were older than, what, 30?
On second thought, that's absolutely possible.
- pelagicAustral
My commit messages when no one is looking, and the reason I hardly ever open source stuff...