LMAO Is Not a Law Enforcement Purpose
Every time a police officer searches a Flock license plate camera network, the system asks why. The officer types a reason. That reason goes into an audit log, and audit logs are public records.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation requested those logs from agencies around the country and published what it found this week. These are some of the reasons officers gave for tracking the movements of people's cars:
"LMAO." Lake County Sheriff's Department, Indiana. That one search reached more than 19,000 cameras in 1,558 cities and towns.
"idk." Goshen Police Department, Indiana. On May 7, 2025, a single search hit 6,474 camera networks and 82,413 cameras.
"LOL." Barberton Police Department, Ohio, and Harris County Sheriff's Office, Texas.
"Hehe." Richmond Police Department, California.
"Haha." Riverside County Sheriff's Department, California.
"blah." Fishers Police Department, Indiana.
"Sexy." Norton Police Department, Massachusetts.
"WEIRD KID." Corona Police Department, California.
"driving around being weird." Thornton Police Department, Colorado.
"idiot." Columbus Police Department, Ohio.
"f*ck this new search engine." Michigan City Police Department, Indiana.
Some officers did not bother with words. Eatonton, Georgia logged "HJKNUILH." Moore, Oklahoma logged "jhjhjkhj." More than 30 agencies ran over 6,300 searches with the reason "TBD." Priceville, Alabama accounted for 1,954 of those on its own.
Nobody hacked anything to get this. It is simply what the system recorded.
What happened to the officers:
Not much. Some were counseled. One department looked into the "driving around being weird" search and decided it served "legitimate public safety purposes." Fishers said the detective who typed "blah" had "issues with the technology." One officer who typed "idiot" was never investigated at all, because the 90-day window in the union contract had already closed.
Flock's fix:
In late 2025, Flock removed the free-text box and replaced it with a dropdown menu of prewritten reasons. An officer now picks an offense category and moves on. That does nothing to make a search more justified. It only makes the log harder to read. An officer who once would have typed "LMAO" can now click "Theft," and the audit will never show the difference. EFF called the change "a loss for transparency." I would call it a cover.
What North Carolina law says:
N.C.G.S. § 20-183.31 requires any agency using license plate readers to adopt a written policy before the system goes live. That policy has to include auditing of system use at least once a year. The same section says plate data "shall be obtained, accessed, preserved, or disclosed only for law enforcement purposes." Under § 20-183.33, misuse is a Class 1 misdemeanor.
"LMAO" is not a law enforcement purpose. Neither is "idk."
None of the agencies named in EFF's findings are in North Carolina. That does not mean it has not happened here. It means nobody has looked yet.
Asheville:
City Council ended the Flock contract on Aug. 25. The Asheville Police Department still has 137 license plate readers on city vehicles under the Axon agreement, and those searches leave a trail too. Residents deserve answers to a few simple questions.
Has APD conducted the audits state law requires? Who reviewed them? What reasons did officers enter? And while the Flock contract was active, were Asheville's cameras open to agencies in other states, where an officer in Indiana could search them for "LMAO"?
The audit logs are public records. Any resident can request them from the City of Asheville.
EFF put it plainly: "If police want the power to track a person's movements, they must be required to convince a judge with evidence and probable cause." A system that can follow a car through 1,558 towns should take more than a joke to switch on.
