What Happened to Have I Been Flocked??

The emergence of "Have I Been Flocked?" in August 2026 marked a significant moment in the ongoing public and political debate surrounding mass surveillance and digital privacy. The website, an initiative of the independent editorial project Footnote4a, provides a unique service: allowing individuals to search publicly available audit logs from Flock Safety's Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) network to see if their vehicle's license plate has been searched. This tool was developed by privacy advocates, including Cris van Pelt and open-records researcher Jason Hunyar, who sought to expose the pervasive nature of vehicle tracking.

The platform's creation was a direct response to the rapid expansion of Flock Safety's ALPR camera network across the United States, which by 2026 comprised over 120,000 cameras. While Flock Safety markets its technology as a crime-fighting tool, civil liberties organizations and journalists have raised serious concerns about its potential for misuse, widespread data sharing, and the creation of a searchable database of citizens' movements without individualized suspicion. Investigations, including one by The Washington Post, revealed that at least 50 law enforcement officers had been accused or charged with misusing ALPRs, sometimes for personal reasons like stalking.

A key turning point that spurred the development of "Have I Been Flocked?" was the discovery that numerous police departments had unwittingly released unredacted Flock audit logs through public records requests. These logs contained sensitive details, including license plate numbers, search times, agencies involved, and sometimes even officer identifiers and reasons for the search. This data, intended for transparency, inadvertently exposed the scale of surveillance and the potential for privacy breaches. In January 2026, Flock Safety reportedly responded to these revelations by threatening Cris van Pelt, the creator of "Have I Been Flocked?", and by subsequently limiting the information available in its audit logs, raising questions about future transparency.

Despite Flock's attempts to restrict access to information, "Have I Been Flocked?" launched with a database compiled from hundreds of millions of records obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and government transparency portals. As of August 17, 2026, the site had amassed details from nearly 242 million Flock searches, covering over 4.6 million unique license plates. The website clarifies that a search result indicates a manual query of a license plate within the Flock system, not necessarily that the vehicle was stopped or its owner investigated. However, it provides invaluable insight into the extent of surveillance. The launch of the tool coincided with Flock Safety's announcement on August 13, 2026, of new privacy safeguards, including reducing default data retention to seven days and requiring case codes for searches, measures seen by some as a direct response to the growing backlash and the transparency efforts of sites like "Have I Been Flocked?".

As of August 18, 2026, "Have I Been Flocked?" remains an active and crucial resource for privacy advocates and the public. It serves as a testament to the power of open records and independent journalism in holding powerful surveillance technologies accountable. While its database is acknowledged to be incomplete due to redaction challenges and delays in public records releases, it continues to highlight the pervasive nature of ALPR surveillance and the need for robust privacy protections. The platform's ongoing operation ensures that the conversation around automated license plate readers, data governance, and civil liberties remains at the forefront of public discourse.