From “The Drive”
A Flock camera error sends police to take down an innocent driver. It’s a nightmare scenario—but it actually happened to us. Here’s what we did about it.
Flock Safety is now one of the most controversial companies in America. Its network of over 120,000 AI-powered cameras is scanning 20 billion license plates every month, tracking the movements of tens of millions of people, hunting for crime. And it’s sparked a massive backlash as fears mount over mass surveillance, misuse by police, and innocent drivers being targeted in dangerous situations.
That’s exactly what happened to Joel Feder, The Drive’s director of content and product, who was ambushed by police one Sunday in June while test driving a new Range Rover in Minnesota. Four cop cars boxed him in, and the officers ordered him and his wife out of the vehicle. After searching them for weapons, the officers told him he was being detained for possible grand theft auto because Flock had flagged the Range Rover’s license plate as stolen.
Joel was held for nearly an hour before police realized they screwed up. The plate wasn’t actually stolen—Flock’s alert was wrong. They let him go with a warning: drive straight home, because they couldn’t stop Flock from continuing to track him and send other police departments after him. And next time, they might come at him with weapons drawn.
We were furious. Why did Flock tell police the plate was stolen? How could this happen. Why does this keep happening? And what isn’t Flock doing to prevent it? We decided to use our platform to get some answers.
Over weeks of reporting, we uncovered the full story of how Flock’s nationwide scale and frightening lack of internal safeguards and basic foresight is leading to dangerous wrongful stops like this. We learned the exact combination of mistakes by police and Flock that put Joel in harm’s way. And we got face to face with Flock’s CEO to press for change.
This is how it all went down.