On October 4, 2025, Joaquin Deno attended his granddaughter's birthday party in Sanford, Florida. Eight miles away on Interstate 4, a speeding car swerved across lanes at over 100 mph, striking Deno's motorcycle and a Ford Focus, causing a fatal pileup. Deno, a county official, and his wife died at the scene.

Police used a Flock camera, a type of automated license plate reader (ALPR), which had spotted a Dodge Durango near the incident. They arrested the vehicle's owner, 23-year-old Lindsey Isaacs. However, Isaacs spent two weeks in jail and faced months of legal jeopardy despite the possibility that the camera had identified the wrong car due to insufficient police scrutiny.

Flock cameras have been reported to make errors, such as mistaking digits on license plates or misreading states, leading to wrongful detentions at gunpoint. These incidents highlight significant privacy and safety concerns with the largely unmonitored use of ALPR technology.

Internal emails obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union revealed that the FBI paused camera purchases in 2025 due to ongoing privacy issues. Additionally, a Houston-area police intelligence task force memo warned that the website haveibeenflocked.com poses officer safety risks and advised officers to be vague when documenting search reasons.

Flock CEO Garrett Langley acknowledged that "any level of abuse is unacceptable" but emphasized that "over a million cases were solved last year with this technology, and the level of abuse is incredibly low relative to that." He also stated that Flock cameras helped locate more than 10,000 missing persons in 2025, averaging over 27 per day.

ALPR technology captures point-in-time images of license plates on public roads, storing them in searchable databases. It can also record vehicle type, color, GPS location, and timestamps. Since drivers are legally required to display license plates, these devices effectively turn plates into tracking beacons.

The first license plate reader was invented in 1976, but their widespread use by law enforcement has grown significantly over the past two decades.

Sources