DeSantis Says Flock Cameras Are “Out of Control.” Florida Is Ripping Them Off State Highways After Cops Used Them to Track Their Exes.

One Florida officer allegedly searched for his estranged wife’s car 717 times. Another detective allegedly created official-looking records to investigate her husband’s former wife. A Texas search involving a woman who had an abortion reached more than 83,000 cameras. Florida has now given police 30 days to remove automated plate readers from state highways. Florida installed an enormous network of cameras capable of recording where ordinary people drive. Then police officers allegedly discovered the nation’s most predictable surveillance emergency. Their exes. Governor Ron DeSantis now says automated license-plate readers have gotten “out of control.” The Florida Department of Transportation has ordered local law-enforcement agencies to remove the cameras from state-highway rights of way within 30 days. Existing permits are being revoked. New permits will not be issued. If police departments fail to remove their equipment before the deadline, FDOT says state workers can remove it for them. Florida is not banning every plate reader in the state. Cameras located on municipal streets, county roads and private property can remain unless another authority removes them. But ordering surveillance equipment off major state roads is an extraordinary reversal from one of America’s most aggressively pro-police Republican governments. The state’s explanation is even more remarkable. FDOT cited exponential growth, reports of misuse, privacy problems and surveillance schemes threatening Floridians’ sovereignty and quality of life. That is government language for: We attached computers to poles and recently discovered the computers were watching everybody. The cameras are commonly associated with Flock Safety, an Atlanta company operating a network of approximately 120,000 AI-powered cameras across 49 states. Each roadside unit photographs passing vehicles and records plate numbers, vehicle characteristics, time and location. Depending on an agency’s permissions and sharing arrangements, an officer can search local, statewide or nationwide data. The system can help locate a stolen car, identify a suspect vehicle or find a missing person. It can also tell an officer where his estranged wife has been driving. Haines City Officer Christopher Goodson was arrested in August after investigators accused him of searching for his estranged wife’s vehicle 717 times between September 2024 and June 2026. The searches allegedly occurred both while Goodson was working and while he was off duty. Goodson reportedly told a supervisor that he wanted to monitor the location of his children when they were with their mother. Investigators charged him with official misconduct and an offense involving unauthorized computer access. The allegations have not been proven in court. Goodson indicated that he would resign, according to his department. A surveillance system designed to locate wanted vehicles had allegedly become a 717-episode domestic reality show with one viewer and no consent form. Then came Sumter County. Detective Brandy Almany was fired and charged after investigators accused her of using Flock and other government databases to collect information about her husband’s former wife. The sheriff’s office says Almany allegedly created official-looking records to make personal searches appear connected to legitimate police work. She has not been convicted. The Sumter County sheriff temporarily suspended the entire license-plate-reader program while the department examined who had access and what they had been searching. The cameras supposedly catch criminals. In this case, an audit of the cameras allegedly caught the detective. These were not isolated national examples. The Washington Post identified at least 50 officers recently charged with or accused of misusing automated plate readers. Forty-six of those cases reportedly involved Flock. More than half involved an officer searching for a wife, girlfriend, former partner, an ex-partner’s new boyfriend or a woman the officer wanted to meet. A Milwaukee officer allegedly searched for a woman he was dating 124 times and searched for her former partner another 55 times. A Kansas police chief reportedly searched for an ex-partner 164 times and her boyfriend 64 times. The technology industry promised artificial intelligence would increase government efficiency. Apparently it reduced stalking from a weekend activity to a searchable dashboard. The privacy problem extends considerably beyond romantic obsession. In May 2025, a Texas deputy used Flock’s National Lookup feature during a search involving a woman believed to have administered her own abortion. The reason typed into the system reportedly included the words “had an abortion, search for female.” The query reached 6,809 camera networks containing more than 83,000 cameras, including cameras in states where abortion is legal. Texas authorities characterized the operation as a search for a missing woman whose family feared for her safety. Critics saw proof that a local officer could use a national surveillance network to follow someone across state lines over activity that was lawful elsewhere. Two members of Congress demanded answers from Flock concerning warrants, interstate searches and access controls. The camera on your street may have been purchased by your town. The search can originate from a county you have never visited. That is the central problem. Each camera looks local. The network is not. WIRED revealed another layer Thursday after reconstructing portions of Flock’s newest search interface from software code delivered to police browsers. The company’s broader platform includes an AI-powered watch list that lets officers draw an area on a map and search participating video cameras for people matching a written description. That person-search capability operates on video cameras, while searches of traditional plate-reader cameras are limited to vehicles and vehicle characteristics. Flock’s software attempts to screen queries involving sensitive traits such as race, religion, nationality and political expression. Some searches are blocked. Others produce warnings that officers can acknowledge and bypass. According to WIRED’s analysis, political, social and cultural expression receives a warning rather than an absolute prohibition. An officer can enter a comment, check a box and continue. That matters because a bumper sticker can reveal a political opinion while also becoming a searchable characteristic of a vehicle. In one documented California query, an officer’s search for “American flag” reportedly ran across 11,000 cameras after the system blocked the phrase in one search mode but accepted it as a vehicle search. Flock says the warning system preserves legitimate investigative uses, such as searching for a suspect wearing clothing bearing a gang insignia. Privacy specialists say the same function could help identify vehicles associated with a protest, political rally or religious gathering. The computer does not know whether the officer is hunting an armed suspect or compiling a list of citizens with the wrong bumper sticker. It knows someone with a badge clicked continue. Flock has announced significant changes in response to the backlash. The company is reducing its recommended default retention period from 30 days to seven days for new law-enforcement customers. It is making its automated auditing system mandatory, introducing proactive account lockouts and requiring most searches to include a case code. Emergency searches can proceed without a code but should be flagged for review. Investigators will be able to preserve specific records connected to active cases. Existing private customers can retain different storage arrangements, and government agencies may seek longer periods under applicable laws and approval procedures. Flock says its customers own and control their data, sharing is locally determined and the company does not sell the information. It also emphasizes that the plate readers do not use facial recognition. The company argues that responsible oversight is preferable to a ban. Its cameras have unquestionably helped solve crimes. Florida departments credit plate readers with locating a murder suspect, recovering stolen vehicles and finding a 13-year-old girl during an Amber Alert. Flock says communities should not be forced to choose between privacy and safety. Seven Miami-Dade County mayors have asked DeSantis to reconsider Florida’s highway order. They argue that responsible cities should not lose valuable investigative tools because other departments failed to supervise their employees. Miami Beach has approximately 40 automated plate readers, roughly half of them located on state roads. Mayor Steven Meiner wants legislation restoring local control with stronger oversight. The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office and Doral Police Department went further than Florida required and announced suspensions of their plate-reader programs while officials evaluate the order. There is a legitimate public-safety argument for keeping the cameras. There is also a legitimate question about why basic protections arrived after police allegedly conducted hundreds of personal searches. Requiring a case number is not futuristic privacy engineering. It is the database equivalent of asking an officer why he needs the keys. Florida’s retreat is part of a national political shift. Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently halted state funding for additional Flock cameras. Cities and counties across the country have suspended programs, canceled contracts or demanded audits. A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed Monday found that 47% of Americans opposed having Flock cameras in their communities. Only 38% supported them. Republicans were more supportive, with 54% in favor, while 54% of Democrats opposed the cameras. That partisan divide may not survive many more stories involving officers typing their former partners into national tracking systems. Conservatives traditionally dislike centralized government surveillance. Progressives traditionally distrust unaccountable policing. Flock appears to have invented a technology capable of annoying everyone. DeSantis is presenting Florida’s order as protection against a surveillance state. His critics note that Republican officials allowed the cameras to multiply before discovering the privacy emergency. Both statements can be true. Removing cameras from state highways will not dismantle the national network. It will not erase existing data, remove equipment from local roads or prevent private businesses and neighborhoods from operating cameras under separate arrangements. It does establish a remarkable boundary. Florida’s government has decided that a system sold as a public-safety tool expanded quickly enough, connected broadly enough and was abused often enough to threaten the public it was watching. The cameras were installed to find criminals. They found missing children, stolen cars and murder suspects. They also allegedly found wives, ex-girlfriends, political symbols and a woman connected to an abortion investigation thousands of cameras away. The company calls that a supervision problem. Florida calls it “out of control.” The poles are coming down. The database already knows which roads the trucks will take.