Flock Built an AI Tool That Can Identify Drivers and Track Vehicles, Wired Reports

Wired reviewed code describing the system and found 45 tools available to the AI. These give it access to license plate scans, camera metadata, arrest records, case files, dispatch logs, ballistics results, and commercial databases containing Social Security numbers, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, relatives, and associates. An officer does not need a plate, a name, or a crime to begin an inquiry; they can supply a place, a time frame, and a pattern of behavior, and the system is designed to return the people who match.

One preloaded prompt reads: “Find me witnesses based on vehicles most seen in [neighborhood] during [last 14 days] during [daily timeframe] *(will not include whitelisted vehicles).” An officer fills in the blanks and submits it. The system returns a list of plates, which other tools convert into names and home addresses. Another prompt instructs the system to list everyone arrested more than twice in two years for “any offense,” exempting narcotics arrests, then map where those people live, retrieve calls for service at their homes, and “do a workup on the top three individuals.” A “workup” is Flock’s one-command background check, starting with a name and date of birth and returning vehicle records, prior suspect listings, relatives, phone numbers, and online accounts.

The report arrives as Flock faces bipartisan political pressure, a growing record of officers caught misusing its platform, and a wave of vandalism that has left cameras sawed off and lenses painted over in cities across the country. Flock says the product is still in development and its capabilities may not reflect what it eventually sells. A law professor at George Washington University told Wired, “It is clear Flock has aspirations far beyond ALPRs to become a digital platform for policing.”