On a given day driving around Kansas City, your license plate may be read by a Flock camera a dozen times — immediately available to police across the country.
But who’s searching that data? And why?
A KCUR analysis shows out-of-state police departments account for the vast majority of data collected by automatic license plate readers in Kansas City.
Now, there is a full Flock revolt. People are telling police chiefs, mayors and city councils that they don’t like how many automated license plate reader cameras there are and especially how much data they collect and share.
And it’s working.
“This is an issue where folks are coming together across political perspectives, across ideological perspectives, and are saying that they want their privacy protected,” said Micah Kubic, Executive Director of the ACLU of Kansas.
After two hastily called town halls in Parkville, Missouri, the city temporarily shut off its 14 Flock cameras.
“We know that flock has been used by ICE to arrest people who are not illegal or don't have warrants,” Parkville resident Celeste Lupercio said at a town hall. “As a Mexican, that really worries me. I see what's happening to my people.”
Early this year, Weston, Missouri, residents forced the city to cancel its contract with Flock for two cameras.
Maybe the most aggressive response to Flock concerns came from Lee’s Summit police last week.
“A decision was made that we would no longer share data we collect within our city with any other agency that could not guarantee the same level of data protection,” said Lee’s Summit police spokesperson Sgt. Chris Depue.
Lee’s Summit now requires a memorandum of understanding, still being written, with any law enforcement agency anywhere in the country to access Flock data from its 55 cameras.
Even Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe issued a statewide executive order limiting how police can use automated license plate reader data.
Data must be purged after 30 days unless there is an ongoing criminal investigation, it prohibits vendors from selling the data and bans AI facial recognition from license plate reader systems.
“The unchecked collection and indefinite storage of location data belonging to law-abiding citizens raises substantial, valid constitutional and privacy concerns,” Kehoe said in a statement.
Flock is everywhere
How ubiquitous are Flock cameras and searches in and around Kansas City?
In just one 30-day period this year — between April 24 and June 24 — the Kansas City, Kansas, Police, Department database was queried almost 1.1 million times.
The most frequent searches were by officers from the Houston Police Department. Next, was the Dallas police with the California Highway Patrol third.
In all, those three out-of-state departments searched Flock data in Kansas City, Kansas, 198,000 times.
“The bigger concern I have is, where the data is stored? Who has access to it? Outside our community, whether that information can be hacked by others, whether it can be shared with other entities,” Parkville resident David Dods said after a recent town hall meeting.
A KCUR analysis of Flock audit data in Kansas City, Kansas, Gladstone, Missouri, and Lee’s Summit, Missouri shows Dods’ concerns have some merit.
Law enforcement from thousands of departments have access to the license plate data Flock and other automatic license plate reader cameras collect.
Depending on how busy the intersection is, these cameras can capture up to 2,000 license plates a minute, according to a Department of Justice study.
Flock now provides coast-to-coast data with just a couple of clicks.
“It becomes a system that can track you across the country,” according to Christie Hebert, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, which has launched a license plate reader project.
While cops in California and Texas searched Kansas City, Kansas, data hundreds of thousands of times, Kansas City, Kansas, police did 3,570 searches in the same period.
Other departments' Flock data
Just like in Kansas City, Kansas, Gladstone Flock data was of particular interest to Houston and Dallas police.
In the first six months of this year, those two departments searched Gladstone data more than 725,000 times.
Louisville, Kentucky was third with almost 85,000 queries.
The FBI searched Gladstone Flock data 67,000 times between January 1 and July 1.
The audit data obtained from KCUR was not consistent across departments.
For example, Lee’s Summit data does not show how many out-of-state departments conducted searches.
But the search audit between January 1 and July 1, 2026 revealed some interesting facts:
- 89 Lee’s Summit officers did 2,699 searches
- 242 searches covered 5,000 networks
- Three officers accounted for 24% of all searches
- The most common reason for searching was theft
The sheer amount of license plate information stored has people demanding privacy.
“We don't want to live in a surveillance society,” Kubic said. “We don't want to live in East Germany under the Stasi, thank you very much.”
The data also reveals a trend privacy advocates are most concerned about: so-called freeform searches.
Flock cameras record license plate numbers but when it snaps a picture of your car, it also creates a “vehicle fingerprint” that knows your bumper stickers, decals and roof racks.
It can also be searched with vague suspect descriptions.
The KCUR analysis showed 141 freeform searches in Kansas City, Kansas.
Officers searched for a “male with black ski mask” and a “Buick/silver SUV with a sticker.” In Lee’s Summit the searches were as vague as “Honda/blue” and “sedan/silver-gray.”
Almost all Flock critics agree that license plate reader cameras are a valuable law enforcement tool — the system can help locate a missing child or a fleeing bank robber in almost real time.
Hebert, the attorney for the Institute for Justice, suggests most Flock searches should be allowed only after a judge approves a search warrant.
“But it's not a tool that officers just get to decide to do a comprehensive search for, you know, every white Chevy,” she told KCUR.
Police abuse and mistakes
At the Parkville meetings almost two weeks ago, Police Chief Kevin Chrisman said the department has guardrails to prevent misuse.
“If you’re not doing anything wrong, you don’t have to worry,” Chrisman said.
The Institute for Justice suggests otherwise. The organization has assembled an “Incident List” of automated license plate reader abuse and mistakes.
Five incidents are in Kansas, including the case of Canyen Ashworth.
A KCUR investigation discovered that Lenexa police tracked Ashworth’s movements with automated license plate readers after he wrote a critical newspaper column about the department.
Three incidents were reported in Missouri. In one case, a Joplin officer was charged with using the department’s Flock data to monitor multiple girlfriends.
“So as much as I trust our local police department, we have to have a conversation, a broader conversation about how this is being used nationally and the surveillance state,” Dods from Parkville said.
A USA Today investigation reported that at least 22 law enforcement officers have been arrested, fired or put on leave because of Flock misuse.
Even used correctly, Flock cameras can result in wrongful arrests. In October 2023 in Sedgwick County, Kansas, a Flock camera failed to distinguish between a temporary plate and a permanent license plate.
Police believe the car was stolen and held an innocent couple at gunpoint.
