A growing pattern of police officers abusingautomated licence plate reader systemsto track romantic interests has prompted a nationwide legal campaign challenging the constitutionality ofwarrantless surveillance databases.

A review by theInstitute for Justicehas identified at least 14 cases across the United States in which officers allegedly weaponised automated licence plate reader (ALPR) data to monitor current partners, ex-partners, and strangers they wished to pursue romantically. The incidents, the bulk of which occurred since 2024, have resulted in criminal charges and job losses in multiple states.

Flock Safety, one of the dominant vendors supplying ALPR technology to police departments nationwide, now faces mounting scrutiny as abuse cases surface through civilian watchdog tools rather than internal police oversight.

In February 2026, Milwaukee Police Officer Josue Ayala was charged with attempted misconduct in public office after prosecutors alleged he searched Flock licence plate readers179 timesto track a woman he was dating and her former partner over a two-month period. On each occasion, Ayala logged his justification in the system as 'investigation,' despite no active investigation tied to either plate, according tocharging documents.

The case came to light not through internal review, but after one of the victims checked her plate number onHaveIBeenFlocked.com, a publicly accessible site that publishes Flock audit logs obtained through open records requests.

NEW: An@ijreview of media reports has identified at least 14 recent cases of police officers allegedly using Flock and other automated license plate reader systems to stalk wives, girlfriends, exes, and even strangers who caught their eye in public.pic.twitter.com/h91AbuDWsK

Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Normansubsequently directed the Internal Affairs Division to open a criminal investigation and placed Ayala on full suspension. In a public statement, Norman said: 'I cannot guarantee as an executive leader that no one will ever push the envelope, cross the line. But I am saying to our public, because I understand privacy is a huge situation of trust for us, that we need to ensure we are going to hold them accountable when they violate that trust.'

TheACLU of Wisconsin, responding to the case, noted that Milwaukee police logged the word 'investigation' as a search reason more than 1,000 times across the department in 2025 alone, making it impossible to distinguish lawful queries from abuse.

The Milwaukee case sits within a broader national pattern. In Sedgwick, Kansas, former Police Chief Lee Nygaard resigned after allegedly using Flock cameras to track his ex-girlfriend and her new partner more than 200 times over several months, and in Kechi, Kansas, Lieutenant Victor Heiar pleaded guilty to computer crime andstalkingafter using the system to monitor his estranged wife. In Riverside County, California, Deputy Alexander Vanny, already facing kidnapping charges related to his ex-fiancee, allegedly used his department's Flock system to track one of her friends; he was convicted in ajury trial in December 2025.

The most striking case documented in the Institute for Justice review involves the deliberate targeting of a complete stranger. On 3 February 2026, Monroe County Sheriff's Office Deputy Lamar Eliseo Roman, 28, was working a security detail on the set of 'Bad Monkey,' an Apple TV production filming its second season in the Florida Keys. When a group of women arrived by bus as background extras on Long Beach Road in Big Pine Key, Roman allegedly directed his attention toward one of them. She told him she had a boyfriend.

Source: International Business Times UK