Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. Waymo pulls over, calls cops on juvenile riders who had'ghost gun,' authorities say This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Two young people riding in an autonomous vehicle were arrested in San Francisco after authorities allegedly found them in possession of an illegal "ghost gun."

Security News This Week: The Cybersecurity Apocalypse Is Coming in'Months,' AI Giants Warn Plus: Hackers target over 100 US water systems, ICE puts in an order for robot dogs, and you'll never guess what "MrChildPorn" was arrested for. You may have noticed that Flock Safety's automatic license plate reader cameras--and the cops who misuse them--are getting a lot of coverage lately. This week, WIRED found a particularly wild case: A cop in Alpharetta, Georgia, was accused of searching for the license plate of a coworker dozens of times after an affair between the two ended, according to internal documents obtained by WIRED. The same police department where the former lovers worked also shared the data captured from its Flock cameras with more than 2,000 police departments, colleges, and other organizations across the United States, and accessed data from more than 1,300 entities in exchange. Also at the intersection of love and surveillance, background-check company PeopleFinder is making use of its extensive dossiers on people to start a new dating site called Stud or Dud.

Alpharetta, Georgia, cops share data with thousands of Flock users, ranging from federal agencies to a fish and wildlife commission. The reasons why show how vast--and invasive--the network has become. Alpharetta, a prosperous suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, is home to about 67,000 people, served by about 120 local police officers. It also hosts several dozen cameras sold by Flock Safety, the increasingly controversial surveillance company that collects license plate data and other information and makes it searchable by police. WIRED has made this article free for all to read because it is primarily based on reporting from public records requests. Please consider subscribing to support our journalism.

After an affair with a fellow police officer ended, a Georgia cop used Flock to track her movements--and those of a man whose vehicle often showed up near hers, internal investigation records show. In recent months, there has been a surge in reports of police officers misusing automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) sold by Flock Safety to stalk former romantic partners--but details about these incidents are often scarce. Now, with documents obtained via a public records request, WIRED can reveal specific details about one extensive Flock-fueled surveillance campaign and the subsequent investigation and fallout. Dustin Bozzo, who until this month worked as a patrolman in the Atlanta-area suburb of Alpharetta, Georgia, allegedly used Flock 56 times between March and May to search for the license plate of a former romantic partner--a fellow member of the Alpharetta Police Department. When Bozzo noticed that his ex's car was often near that of another police officer, he began searching for that officer's vehicle as well.

Flock posted videos on its YouTube channel highlighting at least four police departments whose officers have faced allegations of misusing the company's tech. Flock, the increasingly controversial automatic license plate reader (ALPR) company, has previously highlighted at least four police departments on its YouTube page that have since faced allegations of misusing the company's technology. The company featured the Savannah Police Department in a March 2022 YouTube video . Four officers and two workers from the department were recently placed on administrative leave after an internal investigation found "potential misuses" of Flock's ALPR system. Also in Georgia, the Albany Police Department was the subject of a glossy 2024 video .

Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast You can't get a breath of fresh air ... without us knowing. Thanks to the rise of AI, a new kind of surveillance camera has rapidly proliferated across the United States. Typically referred to as automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, they're most often mounted along roadways, where they log the movements of cars which pass through their field of vision. Though various companies offer them, the most well known come from Flock Security, and the company has consequently been a lightning rod for public opinion. Shocking exactly nobody, there has been widespread public backlash to cameras that track everyone, whether or not they've been suspected of a crime.

A Florida man is suing several law enforcement agencies for his arrest and prosecution for allegedly luring a child after he was wrongly identified using faulty AI facial recognition software. According to the Jacksonville Beach police department, an algorithm returned a 93% probability that Robert Dillon was the man caught on security cameras at a McDonald's in the town attempting to persuade an unaccompanied girl, aged younger than 12, to leave with him. Dillon, however, lives in Fort Myers, more than 300 miles and a five-hour drive away, and told detectives he had never been to Jacksonville Beach in his life. The case was dismissed and charges dropped last year over the August 2024 incident. Now the 52-year-old has filed a lawsuit against the police department, the Jacksonville sheriff's office, and Bob Gualtieri, the sheriff of Pinellas county, whose agency maintains and operates the Faces (Face Analysis Comparison and Examination) system and leases it to other law enforcement.

The LAPD has long turned to wealthy boosters to supplement its multi-billion dollar annual budget, but the influx of private money is prompting concerns.

"I believe the technology was deployed too quickly in too vast amounts, with hundreds of vehicles, when it wasn't really ready," one police official told federal regulators last month. Emergency first-responder leaders told federal regulators in a private meeting last month that they were frustrated with the performance of autonomous vehicles on their streets--that city firefighters, police officers, EMTs, and paramedics are forced to spend time during emergencies resolving issues with frozen or stuck cars. One fire official called them "a safety issue for our crews as well as the victims." WIRED obtained an audio recording of the meeting. Officials from San Francisco and Austin, where Waymo has been ferrying passengers without drivers for more than a year, said the vehicles' performance is getting worse.