Investigation finds thousands of Flock access requests with joke and/or no reason code

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The High Crime of “LMAO”: How Cops Are Treating Mass Surveillance As a Joke

Here's a riddle: Why did a Goshen Police Department officer search 6,474 automated license plate reader (ALPR) networks, representing data from 82,413 cameras, on May 7, 2025?

If your answer is "I don't know," it turns out you're 100% correct. The officer left the letters "idk" in the search field where cops are supposed to document the reason for the search.

When law enforcement and tech salespeople pitch ALPRs to city councils, they stick to a familiar script. They trumpet the technology, which is often provided by private companies like Flock Safety, Motorola Solutions, or Axon, as an essential tool for solving high-stakes crimes, such as car jacking, kidnapping, or murder.

But when you strip away the carefully curated talking points, the data continues to reveal a different (and frankly, ridiculous) story. An EFF analysis of ALPR search logs from Flock Safety systems shows that officers across the country are spying on drivers for completely nonsensical "reasons." Police are routinely searching the Flock database without providing any legitimate justification, making a mockery of our civil liberties by logging reasons like "LOL" (short for “laugh out loud”), "LMAO" (short for "laughing my arse off"), "sexy," and "idk" (short for “I don’t know”) to access sensitive ALPR location data.

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Barberton Police Department (Ohio) employees ran numerous searches between March 2024 and May 2026, listing “LOL” or “lol” as the reason.
Harris County Sheriff's Office (Texas) employees ran several searches between April and May 2026 listing “LOL” or “lol” as the case number.
Lake County Sheriff's Department (Ind.) employees ran searches in July 2025 for “LMAO.”
Richmond Police Department (Calif.) employees ran over multiple searches in November 2024 for “Hehe.”
Riverside County Sheriff's Department (Calif.) employees ran searches in 2024 for “Haha.”

Kankakee County, Sheriff's Office (Ill.) employees ran searches (2023–2025) for “idk” or “idk lol.”
Goshen Police Department (Ind.) ran searches (May–June 2025) for “idk.”
Fishers Police Department (Ind.) ran searches in May 2025 for “blah.”
A Pasco Police Department (Wash.) employee searched for at least four different license plates, leaving "robbery i don't remember the case number leave me alone" in the reason field.
The San Diego Sheriff's Department (Calif.) ran searches in May 2025 with "idk" in the reason field.
More than 30 agencies ran more than 6,300 searches with "TBD" (short for "To Be Determined") as the "reason." These included the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Manteca Police Department (Calif.), and the Baton Rouge Police Department (La.). The Priceville Police Department (Ala.) alone ran 1,954 searches with reasons "TBD."

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