After three former deputies were arrested for tracking personal acquaintances, the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office issued a department-wide memo emphasizing that the nationwide web of license plate readers must only be used for official police harassment.
The arrests this week in Bibb County, Georgia, prompted an internal review of the department's engagement with Flock Safety, a private company whose automated license plate readers continuously track civilian movements across 49 states. According to charging documents, the three deputies routinely queried the database to monitor the real-time locations of romantic partners and neighbors, violating a core department policy requiring a badge to legitimize the stalking.
Internal emails show the sheriff’s office is now implementing mandatory retraining to ensure future privacy violations are filed under the correct administrative codes. Deputies have been instructed that before utilizing a privately managed, nationwide tracking grid to follow a civilian home, they must first invent a plausible suspicion of a minor traffic infraction.
Our high-resolution tracking infrastructure is designed to monitor the movements of every citizen at all times," said Julian Braxton, Vice President of Municipal Panopticons at Flock Safety. "We strictly prohibit law enforcement from using this mass surveillance network to violate anyone's privacy on an individual level.
Investigators noted the deputies did not have to bypass any sophisticated security measures to misuse the system, simply selecting "Investigative Purposes" from a drop-down menu before watching a live feed of their ex-girlfriends driving to the grocery store. The department has since promised to add a secondary drop-down menu to further deter unauthorized constitutional violations.
The incident has fueled ongoing national debate over the proliferation of the cameras, which currently monitor roads in every state except Alaska. Law enforcement advocates warned that without Flock's automated network, Alaskan deputies are still being forced to stalk their exes by physically sitting in the bushes outside their homes.