Flock camera error leads to wrongful arrest, days in jail for wrong car

A Georgia woman spent several days behind bars after an automated license plate recognition (ALPR) system run by Flock Safety flagged her vehicle as a suspect in a fatal hit-and-run. The only problem: authorities had the wrong car.

The incident, which unfolded earlier this month, highlights growing concerns around the accuracy and accountability of surveillance technology used by law enforcement across the U.S. The woman, who has not been named in reports, was detained on March 3, 2025, after troopers responded to a Flock camera alert that allegedly linked her sedan to a deadly collision that occurred days earlier. But a subsequent review of additional footage showed her car was never at the scene — and the actual suspect vehicle was a different make and model.

According to court documents obtained by Nexstar’s Brendan Keefe, the Flock camera captured a plate that partially matched the suspect’s description. The system’s algorithm, designed to identify vehicles by plate and physical attributes, incorrectly flagged the woman’s car. She was arrested and held for four days before prosecutors reviewed the evidence and dropped the charges.

“This is a textbook example of why we cannot outsource police work to flawed algorithms,” said Jennifer Lynch, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), in an emailed statement to SEO News. “When a machine makes a mistake, a human being pays the price — often in lost freedom and reputation.”

Flock Safety, a privately held company headquartered in Atlanta, markets its cameras as a tool to help police solve crimes faster. The company claims its systems “identify vehicles of interest” using plate data, color, make, and model, and claims a 98%+ accuracy rate under ideal conditions. However, critics note that real-world conditions — including glare, partial occlusion, and differing camera angles — can lead to false positives.

In this case, the woman’s lawyer, Atlanta-based civil rights attorney Mark Yant, said the arrest was “preventable” if officers had cross-referenced the Flock lead with other evidence, such as witness statements or nearby security feeds. “Instead, they took the camera’s word as gospel and put an innocent woman in a cell,” Yant told reporters.

The incident comes amid wider scrutiny of ALPR deployment. A 2023 study by the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy & Technology found that police departments rarely audit Flock alerts for accuracy, and that false positives disproportionately affect minority and low-income communities. The Georgia case appears to fit that pattern: the woman is described as a Black single mother.

Flock Safety has faced a series of legal challenges over similar errors. In 2024, a court in Texas dismissed charges against a man after a Flock camera misidentified his pickup truck as a stolen vehicle. And in Florida, two separate instances of wrongful stops were traced back to Flock-generated alerts that turned out to be faulty.

The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this latest incident. However, its support page advises officers to “always verify” before taking enforcement action. Critics argue that the company profits from the volume of alerts, creating an incentive to flag more vehicles rather than fewer.

After her release, the woman filed a notice of claim against Flock Safety and the Georgia Department of Public Safety, seeking damages for false imprisonment, emotional distress, and violation of her Fourth Amendment rights. The case is expected to go to discovery in the coming months.

“We are seeing the same pattern over and over,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “Flock cameras are treated as neutral evidence, but they are a tool that amplifies police mistakes. Until the technology is independently validated and subject to human review, we will continue to see innocent people swept up.”

In response to the incident, two Georgia state senators introduced SB 420, a bill that would require law enforcement to obtain a warrant before using ALPR data as the sole basis for a stop or arrest. The bill currently sits in the Judiciary Committee.

As for the woman, she told local media she now fears driving past any Flock camera. “Every time I see one, I just hold my breath,” she said. “I know it’s just a camera, but now it feels like it’s always watching, and it can get me locked up again for no reason.”

This case serves as a stark reminder that in the rush to adopt surveillance technology, privacy and due process often take a back seat. For now, the debate over Flock Safety’s role in policing shows no signs of slowing down — but for one wrongfully arrested woman, the damage is already done.