Cops left the force. They kept tracking people with a powerful camera network.

The Washington Post ^ | October 21, 2026 5:00 a.m. EDT | Douglas MacMillan , Drew Harwell and Aaron Schaffer

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Police kept access to Flock’s vast surveillance system long after they left the force. Some used it to track the locations of romantic partners.

When Andrae Wright left his job as an investigator at the Effingham County Sheriff’s Office in 2021, he handed in his gun and badge. But he kept something powerful: his log-in credentials for Flock, a police tool he used to search a vast network of roadside cameras tracking the locations of passing cars.

In the five years after leaving the force, Wright searched the system more than 60 times without being stopped by anyone at the Georgia sheriff’s office, according to a statement by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Flock audit logs reviewed by The Post. He repeatedly searched the location of a vanity license plate bearing the middle name of his wife, according to the audit logs. The couple divorced this year, court records show, and at the time of some of his Flock searches, Wright was fighting for permanent custody of their teenage daughter.

In July, after a tipster alerted local authorities, police arrested Wright and charged him with stalking his wife, claiming he misused Flock data “for the purpose of harassing and intimidating her,” according to his warrant. State law restricts the use of license plate readers to legitimate law enforcement investigations.

Wright did not respond to phone calls, text messages or voicemails seeking comment. Brian Bailey, a sheriff’s office spokesman, said that the agency had not conducted regular audits of who had access to its Flock system during that time but that it plans to begin doing so.

The case marked one of at least 11 times in which government officials have discovered unauthorized users have gained access to Flock databases and searched them without permission, sometimes to track the locations of...

---

TOPICS: Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: flock; ntsa

[E. Pluribus Unum]

When they leave the force, HR should notify IT to revoke their credentials.

Failure to do so is negligence.

[Extropist]

Flock is a private company that partners with PDs to provide surveillance, log-ins occur into Flock and Flock itself would either need to surrender access control to the PDs (probably unlikely to be something it is willing to do) or be regulated to enforce oversight over protecting access to prevent this.

You’d still have issues, though, with friends on the force and the like looking it up themselves from a phone call away. There have been cases of that, as well, probably indicating as well that there are much greater reforms needed to prevent this problem from occurring convergently with this log-in issue (as it illustrates a broader lack of oversight over the use of Flock.)

[BobL]

” He repeatedly searched the location of a vanity license plate bearing the middle name of his wife, according to the audit logs. The couple divorced this year, court records show, and at the time of some of his Flock searches, Wright was fighting for permanent custody of their teenage daughter.”

Flock Junkie reply: Well, maybe she was with a creep and he needed to find out to protect his daughter.

[Vermont Lt]

This isn’t the fault of flock cameras. It’s shoddy management.

When did organizations stop training managers? This is basic “mustering out” checklist stuff.

The problem with America is that we stopped managing stuff and processes very well. We promote people who check off boxes, but they don’t train them or the people are too stupid to retain their training.

[algore]

I knew a girl who did that, she would use her old credentials to look up license plates all the time, not only for herself but for anyone else who asked her.

(this was pre-flock)

[Jacquerie]

Got a cell phone?

You can be tracked.

Ask the J6ers.

[bigbob]

Your last sentence says it all. This officer had a boss and that boss failed on multiple levels. Like misuse of credit cards, personnel records, or criminal evidence, or any other valuable law enforcement asset, access should be strictly controlled, and audited. Anyone who has worked in a supervisory role in private business knows this.

The officer quit. His boss should be fired.

[Ken H]

Send him for more training. /s