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A small-business owner in Georgia has sued Flock and the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office over alleged retaliation using license plate cameras. “[The lawsuit] alleges illegal [license plate tracking] searches over many months without probable cause and unrelated to any specific investigation,” Hall & Lampros, attorneys for plaintiff Tyler Murkerson, wrote in a press release. “The lawsuit alleges that Flock also failed to put safeguards in place to prevent illegal surveillance by officers by accepting free-text-field entries instead of specific case numbers or investigations.” Murkerson’s saga began in February 2023, when he was arrested by sheriff’s deputies over an alleged seatbelt violation; those charges were dropped months later. In September 2024, Murkerson sued the department, accusing them of excessive force. The case was only recently settled. While that lawsuit was pending, Murkerson says his car’s license plate was searched multiple times in the Flock system. Additionally, he alleges that deputies followed or monitored him as he drove to and from his home. His attorneys claim that, when searching for Murkerson’s vehicle, sheriff’s deputies entered nonsense rationales. This has been a widely reported weakness of the Flock system. “Throughout the relevant period Flock’s platform required only that some text be entered in a free-form field, and it accepted whatever was typed—‘investigation’ and, on twenty separate occasions at one department, ‘hehehe,’” the October 8 complaint states. “The only justifications entered for the searches of Mr. Murkerson’s vehicle were ‘info’ and ‘37.’ Neither corresponds to any investigation, case, incident, or call for service. A search recorded that way documents no investigation. It documents only that someone typed something. Flock has since conceded, by its own conduct, that its platform should have required a verifiable law enforcement justification before executing a search.”
document fetched 2026-10-15 02:59 · canonical https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/georgia-man-sues-flock-sheriffs-office-over-alleged-alpr-fueled-retaliation