A former 911 director for the Dallas Police Department is behind bars in Paulding County after investigators say she used the department's automated license plate reader system to track her ex-spouse as many as 1,200 times. Heidi Taylor, 52, who lives in Dallas, Georgia, was booked into the Paulding County Jail on two misdemeanor counts of misuse of a license plate reader system.
According to the 11Alive, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation opened its probe on July 7 after receiving allegations that Taylor improperly accessed the Dallas Police Department's Flock Safety system. Investigators say preliminary information shows she accessed the system in both 2024 and 2025, running plates connected to her former spouse for reasons that had nothing to do with law enforcement work, according to investigators. The Flock Safety system uses automated cameras to collect vehicle location information that can assist law-enforcement investigations, but investigators say that is not what happened here.
Taylor remains in the Paulding County Jail, according to the GBI. Once the investigation wraps up, the case will be handed to the Paulding Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office for prosecution, the agency says. The GBI describes the investigation as active and ongoing, and it is encouraging anyone with additional information to call its tipline at 800-597-TIPS (8477).
A Georgia Law Built to Punish Exactly This
The charges against Taylor rest on O.C.G.A. § 35-1-22, a state statute that makes it a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature to knowingly request, obtain, or use captured license plate reader data for anything other than an official law enforcement purpose, according to Justia Law. The same statute requires that captured plate reader data be destroyed no later than 30 months after collection unless it is tied to an active investigation or toll violation, which is part of why the 2024 and 2025 timeframe matters in Taylor's case. The cameras themselves come from Flock Safety, the Atlanta-headquartered company that has deployed more than 80,000 devices across over 5,000 communities in 49 states, per Wikipedia.
Paulding County Mayor Terry Frank said she has been hearing from residents worried about what she described as a warrantless mass surveillance system, per the 11Alive report. Complicating public oversight further, license plate reader data collected by Georgia government agencies is explicitly exempt from the state's Open Records Act, meaning citizens cannot request or view surveillance records collected on their own vehicles, according to the AJC.
Part of a Statewide Wave of GBI Cases
Taylor's arrest lands amid an unusual surge of official probes across Georgia. At least 18 law enforcement officers and department employees across multiple counties have been fired, arrested, or investigated in July and August for allegedly using ALPR databases to track people for personal reasons, according to CBS News. On the same day Taylor was arrested, the GBI announced the arrest of former Polk County police officer Tracey Royston on four misdemeanor counts tied to misusing a license plate reader system for non-law-enforcement searches conducted between 2024 and 2025.
Other Georgia departments have moved on parallel tracks in recent days. The Savannah Police Department terminated four sworn officers and two civilian employees after an internal audit uncovered unauthorized Flock Safety searches, referring all six cases to the GBI for criminal prosecution. In DeKalb County, Police Chief Gregory Padrick confirmed that eight officers were suspended for between 16 and 80 hours following a separate internal audit into Flock Safety policy violations — an example of a department choosing administrative discipline rather than a criminal referral. Hoodline reported on a similar wave of allegations in a Bibb County stalking case involving sheriff's deputies accused of misusing the same camera network.
How the Searches Get Caught
Flock Safety systems generate digital audit trails that log the user account, timestamp, and stated law-enforcement justification behind every query, which is how automated compliance software and internal investigators flag search patterns that fall outside policy. That audit-trail design is central to how agencies from Savannah to Paulding County have identified potential misuse before referring cases to the GBI.
Even with heavy law-enforcement reliance on the cameras, research from the American Civil Liberties Union has found that less than 1% of all license plates scanned nationwide are linked to active criminal investigations, outstanding warrants, or stolen vehicle reports at the time of scanning. That statistic underscores the volume of ordinary drivers whose movements are captured by systems like the one at the center of Taylor's case, and it is one reason Flock license plate reader systems more broadly are facing scrutiny over improper access allegations well beyond Paulding County.
