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Every time a car rolls past certain intersections, a quiet, unblinking eye may be taking note. As privacy worries mount over Flock Safety's sprawling nationwide camera network, drivers now have a new way to peek behind the curtain — and some may not like what they find.

A New Window Into Flock's System

A website called HaveIBeenFlocked.com has built a searchable database designed to answer a question that's been nagging at privacy-conscious drivers everywhere: has my license plate shown up in Flock's system? Users simply type in their plate number through the site's portal, and the tool tells them whether that plate has ever been searched.

What the Results Actually Show

The site is careful to draw a distinction that matters. What shows up isn't a record of every car Flock's cameras have physically photographed — it's a log of what the company's customers, including police departments, local governments, schools and businesses, have deliberately searched for within the system. As the site puts it, "The license plates and search reasons are what someone manually entered into the system."

Who's Behind the Project

HaveIBeenFlocked describes itself as an independent effort, financially backed by the Alternative Newsweekly Foundation, a nonprofit that funds watchdog journalism. The project's creators say their long-term ambition is to formalize the operation as a nonprofit in its own right. Administrators for the site did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Scale of the Data

The numbers behind the database are hard to ignore: HaveIBeenFlocked says its information comes from publicly released "audit logs" of Flock searches, and the resulting archive spans more than 4.6 million license plate records pulled from roughly 242 million searches — a haystack of a size that makes finding any single needle feel almost improbable, yet the tool manages it instantly.

How the Lookup Works

Once a user enters a plate number, the tool reports back whether a match turned up in its records — then discards the input entirely, according to the site's FAQ. "This website does not save, store, or log the license plate numbers or search terms you enter," the site states, aiming to reassure visitors that checking their own exposure won't create new exposure in the process.

A Sister Project Maps the Cameras Themselves

HaveIBeenFlocked isn't operating alone in this space. A separate initiative called DeFlock takes a different angle, crowdsourcing the physical locations of Flock's automated license plate readers from volunteers and plotting them on a searchable, interactive map — essentially crowdsourcing a treasure map of where the cameras actually sit. Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment on either project.

The Tool's Limitations

For all its ambition, HaveIBeenFlocked comes with real caveats. It isn't built for real-time monitoring, and the site is upfront about the lag: "There can be a significant delay — months or even years — between when a search occurs and when it appears on this website."

The database is also far from exhaustive. The site acknowledges its access to audit logs is limited, and the records it does obtain are sometimes redacted before they ever reach the public. HaveIBeenFlocked says it pieces together its archive from public records requests and government transparency portals, where local agencies occasionally post search data voluntarily.

What Flock's Cameras Actually Do

Flock's network spans the country, capturing license plates alongside other vehicle details like make and color, then funneling that data to paying customers — chiefly law enforcement agencies. Police who rely on the system credit it with helping track down suspects, recover stolen vehicles, and locate missing people, framing it as a modern force multiplier for investigations.

Allegations of Misuse Cast a Shadow

But the technology's reputation has taken a hit recently. According to reporting from The Washington Post, 46 officers across the country have been charged with or accused of using Flock's system for unauthorized purposes — in some documented cases, allegedly to stalk women they knew personally, turning a public-safety tool into an instrument of personal surveillance.

Flock's CEO Responds

Garrett Langley, Flock's founder and CEO, has publicly apologized for the misuse allegations and said the company is rolling out changes aimed at preventing similar abuses going forward. In an interview with CBS News' Anna Schecter last week, Langley pushed back on some of the broader fears swirling around his product, arguing that certain claims amount to "misinformation" about what the technology actually does — specifically denying that Flock tracks cellphones or uses facial recognition, capabilities he said have been wrongly attributed to the company.

"There is the misinformation bucket, and then there's real questions," Langley said, drawing a line between unfounded fears and the legitimate scrutiny his company now faces.