South Fulton Mayor Carmalitha Gumbs and state Sen. Jaha Howard are pushing for tighter controls on who can access data collected by Flock license plate reader cameras. The two officials want to limit access to that data and strengthen accountability around how it gets used.
Flock cameras capture license plate information and related vehicle data as cars pass through a given area, according to FOX 5 Atlanta. Howard said he's developing legislation to bring before the 2027 General Assembly session that would place new restrictions on how the cameras' data can be searched, as reported by Atlanta News First.
Howard laid out his thinking in blunt terms. “There should be an actual crime. You should be doing a real investigation,” he told CBS News Atlanta, describing the standard he believes should govern any search of the camera network's records. He added that his proposal should also include a way to restrict searches and provide transparency about how the information is used, per the same report.
No Reported Misuse Yet, but Officials Point to a National Pattern
South Fulton's own police department has not reported any incidents of Flock data being misused, according to Atlanta News First. Still, officials cited reports that more than 40 law enforcement officials nationwide have been fired for using the cameras for personal reasons, a figure FOX 5 Atlanta attributed to officials discussing the broader problem.
That national backdrop has been building for months. Researchers, journalists and officials reviewing audit logs elsewhere found that local police departments appeared to be conducting searches on behalf of federal agencies, according to NPR. NPR also reported that at least 30 localities had either deactivated their Flock cameras or canceled their contracts since the beginning of 2025, and the Flagstaff City Council voted to end its own Flock contract after residents raised surveillance concerns, the outlet noted.
Backlash Has Spread Well Beyond Georgia
Officers have misused automated license plate readers to track people in their personal lives, and false positives have led to innocent people getting stopped, according to Spotlight PA. More than 50 cities and counties nationwide had canceled or deactivated license-plate-recognition cameras from Flock Safety and other manufacturers, according to Politico reporting cited by ABC News. The same report noted that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott paused state funding for Flock cameras, while Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said he'd welcome a bipartisan bill banning them in his state.
Flock Safety itself has responded to the pressure. The company announced safeguards including cutting default license-plate data retention from 30 days to seven and automatically suspending users who appear to be misusing the system, according to the Georgia Recorder.
Other Governments Have Already Drawn New Lines
South Fulton wouldn't be the first place to tighten the rules. San Francisco now limits police access to license plate reader data to 30 days after it's captured, down from a full year, and requires every search to be tied to a computer-aided dispatch or incident number, according to CBS News San Francisco. Closer to home, The Current reported that McIntosh County added a transparency portal with automatic flags for suspicious searches.
South Fulton scheduled a community forum on the issue from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Southwest Arts Center, bringing residents together with local leaders and privacy experts to discuss the cameras directly. Gumbs and Howard have called for tighter controls on how the camera data is used.
