Used to investigate an abortion.

Court records contradicted the "missing person" explanation for the Texas search

EFF obtained the lead detective's affidavit and incident reports. The affidavit described a "death investigation" of a "non-viable fetus," said deputies collected photographic evidence from the woman's partner, and said deputies consulted prosecutors about charging the woman for "taking the pill to cause the abortion or miscarriage." Flock and Sheriff King had publicly described the search as a missing-persons/welfare matter.

Her family was worried that she was going to bleed to death, and we were trying to find her to get her to a hospital.

— Sheriff Adam King, before the records surfaced

The other side Flock and the sheriff had publicly described the search as a missing-persons matter.

Source · Electronic Frontier Foundation · read it

Illinois data used in the Texas abortion search; 262 immigration-related lookups of one village's data

Mount Prospect's Flock data was accessed by Johnson County, Texas, in the abortion investigation. Reporting also found Mount Prospect data was accessed in 262 immigration-related matters in early 2025. An Illinois law effective 2024 bars sharing ALPR data with out-of-state agencies for immigration- or abortion-related enforcement. The Illinois Secretary of State opened an audit.

I am tremendously upset that some law enforcement agencies who agreed to follow Illinois law … conducted illegal searches.

— Mount Prospect Police Chief Michael Eterno

The other side Mount Prospect denies intentional wrongdoing and says it opted out of the national lookup feature.

Source · Chicago Sun-Times · read it

A deputy searched more than 83,000 cameras nationwide for a woman who had an abortion

A sheriff's deputy ran a nationwide search covering more than 83,000 cameras to locate a woman who had a self-managed abortion, including cameras in states where abortion is legal. The sheriff initially said the search was made because the woman's family feared for her safety; records later obtained by a civil liberties organisation described the case differently.

You have this extraterritorial reach into other states, and Flock has decided to create a technology that breaks through the barriers, where police in one state can investigate what is a human right in another state because it is a crime in another.

— Kate Bertash, Digital Defense Fund

Source · 404 Media, May 29, 2025 · read it