Flock Safety Launches Powerful AI Tool for Police That Contradicts Years of Public Assurances

Flock Safety, a vehicle surveillance company serving over 6,000 communities, has developed an AI-powered tool called OS Investigate that identifies drivers and tracks vehicles through movement patterns alone. This contradicts the company's longstanding public statements that its technology "cannot recognize, identify, or track individuals". The system accesses license plate scans, police case files, 911 dispatch logs, and commercial identity databases, converting detected vehicles into names, home addresses, and relative information. It includes 69 prewritten prompts for officers, ranging from witness identification based on vehicle frequency in specific neighborhoods to searches that flag individuals based solely on behavioral patterns without requiring a plate, name, or known crime. Security researchers examining Flock's code found that some prompts request vehicles visiting multiple retail locations, banks, or gas stations in short timeframes, without identifying any specific suspect or incident. The tool ranks vehicle "associates" through co-appearance at camera locations and can generate dossiers through a single background check command. Flock characterized the product as still in development testing with select law enforcement partners. The company did not dispute the capabilities described but suggested they may change before broader release. Privacy advocates and legal experts argue the system raises constitutional concerns by enabling warrantless mass surveillance of citizens based on movement patterns, comparing its capabilities to surveillance technologies deployed in authoritarian regimes.