미국 전역에서 경찰관들이 자동차 번호판 인식 시스템인 flock을 사적으로 악용하여 전 연인이나 배우자를 불법 추적하는 사례가 속출하고 있습니다. 영장 없이도 차량 이동 경로를 조회할 수 있는 시스템의 구조적 맹점과 내부 통제 부재가 심각한 사생활 침해 문제로 대두되고 있어, AI 및 감시 기술 도입 시 강력한 견제 장치 마련이 시급합니다.
번역된 본문
2024년 여름 몇 달 동안, 플로리다주 오렌지시티 경찰관 자마러스 브라운(Jarmarus Brown)은 전 여자친구의 번호판을 자동 번호판 인식 시스템(ALPR)인 '플록(Flock)' 데이터베이스에서 최소 69회 검색했습니다. 또한 그녀의 어머니 소유 차량 번호판을 최소 24회, 아버지의 번호판을 최소 15회 조회했습니다. 404 미디어(404 Media)가 입수한 법원 기록에 따르면, 브라운의 이러한 검색은 매우 빈번하고 일상적으로 이루어져 동료 경찰관조차 그가 순찰차에 앉아 전 여자친구의 행방을 수색하는 것을 목격할 정도였습니다. 404 미디어가 입수한 브라운의 행동에 관한 경찰 진술서는 "경찰관들이 그곳에 앉아 있을 때, 킹(Shadrich) 경관이 자마러스가 플록 시스템을 사용하고 있으며 화면에 [브라운의 전 여자친구]의 번호판 인식 이미지가 떠 있는 것을 발견했다"고 명시되어 있습니다. 진술서는 이어 "킹 경관은 자마러스에게 문제가 생길 수 있으니 시스템에서 그녀의 차량 조회를 멈춰야 한다고 말했다. 자마러스는 그 사실을 알고 있으며, 앞으로 그만두겠다고 답했다"고 전합니다. 플록의 자동 번호판 인식기는 지나가는 모든 차량을 기록하여 전국적인 사람들의 이동 경로를 포괄적인 네트워크로 구축합니다. 경찰은 번호판을 조회하여 특정 차량, 나아가 특정인이 시간이 지남에 따라 어디로 이동했는지 파악할 수 있습니다. 다른 한 사례에서 브라운은 킹 경관에게 전 여자친구가 자신의 행방에 대해 거짓말을 하고 있다고 생각한다고 말했습니다. 진술서에 따르면 그녀가 "자마러스에게 어머니와 함께 집에 있다고 말했지만, 자마러스는 그녀가 거기에 없다는 것을 확실히 알고 있었다. 킹 경관이 어떻게 그녀가 거짓말한다는 것을 확신할 수 있었는지 묻자, 자마러스는 플록 시스템을 사용해 그녀의 차량이 다른 곳에 있는 것을 보았다고 말했다"고 합니다. 진술서는 이어 "자마러스는 킹 경관에게 그녀의 차량 위치를 확인하기 위해 '잠복 수사(stakeout)'에 같이 하겠냐고 물었다"고 덧붙였습니다. 브라운의 전 여자친구에 따르면, 교제 기간 동안 그는 그녀가 일하는 동안에도 "끊임없이 [그녀에게] 페이스타임(FaceTime)이나 전화를 하도록 강요했다. 자마러스는 그녀가 바르는 화장품의 양이나 손톱의 길이와 같은 삶의 측면을 통제하려 했다"고 합니다. 진술서에 따르면 브라운의 스토킹은 번호판 조회를 넘어섰으며, 교제 중 어느 시점에는 그녀의 지갑에 애플 에어태그(Apple AirTag)를 몰래 넣기도 했습니다. 그러나 그의 감시 활동 대부분은 플록을 통해 이루어졌으며, 그는 그녀가 있는 곳에 무작위로 나타났다고 합니다. 진술서에 따르면 브라운은 수사관들에게 그녀가 자신에게 거짓말을 한다고 생각하여 "가끔 그녀의 번호판을 플록에 입력해 그녀의 행방을 추적했다"고 진술했습니다. 그는 수사관들에게 "내 입장에서는 엄청 바보 같은 짓이었어요. 감정이 북받치고 이성적으로 생각하지 못했습니다"라고 말했습니다. 결국 수사관들은 브라운이 "자신의 개인적인 이유로 [그녀가] 자주 운전하는 차량의 번호판을 대조하기 위해 비밀번호로 보호되는 컴퓨터 시스템인 플록과 데이비드(DAVID, 플로리다주 차량국 차량 정보 데이터베이스)에 고의로 접근했다"고 결론지었습니다. 그의 행동은 그녀의 행방을 추적하는 것 외에는 업무와 관련된 정당한 이유가 없었습니다. 결국 브라운은 스토킹 및 해킹 관련 혐의로 기소되었고, 하루 동안 복역한 후 5년의 집행유예를 선고받았습니다. 브라운의 사례는 결코 단발성이 아닙니다. 전국 각지의 지역 뉴스 보도에는 경찰이 파트너나 전 파트너를 스토킹하기 위해 플록 감시 시스템을 남용했다는 사실이 반복적으로 상세히 보도되고 있습니다. 각 사건의 전개 양상은 대부분 비슷하며, 문제의 경찰관은 시스템에 대한 접근 권한을 이용하여 몇 주 또는 몇 달에 걸쳐 특정인을 반복적으로 추적합니다. 이러한 사건들은 플록이 개인의 행방을 추적하는 데 사용될 수 있다는 사실, 경찰이 영장 없이도 시스템을 사용한다는 점, 그리고 시스템 접근 권한만 있다면 어떤 이유로든 원하는 번호판을 조회할 수 있는 기술적 능력을 가진다는 점을 강하게 시사합니다. 시민권 단체인 정의연구소(Institute for Justice)의 4월 연구에 따르면
For months during the summer of 2024, Jarmarus Brown, an Orange City, Florida police officer, ran his ex-girlfriend's license plate through the Flock automated license plate reader (ALPR) system lookup database at least 69 times. He searched for the license plate belonging to her mom at least 24 times, and searched for the license plate belonging to her dad at least 15 times. Brown’s searches were happening so often, and were so commonplace, that even one of his colleagues noticed Brown researching his ex-girlfriend's whereabouts while the law enforcement officers sat in their police cruisers, according to court records obtained by 404 Media. “While they were sitting there, Officer [Shadrich] King noticed Jarmarus was on the Flock system and a license plate reader image of [Brown’s ex-girlfriend] was on the screen,” a police affidavit about Brown’s behavior obtained by 404 Media reads. “Officer King said he mentioned to Jarmarus that he needed to stop running her vehicle in that system because he could get in trouble. Jarmarus responded saying that he knew that, and he was going to stop.” Flock’s automated license plate readers document every car that drives past them, creating a broad network of people’s movements around the country. Police can then look up license plates to learn where a specific car and, by extension, person, has traveled over time. On another occasion , Brown told King that he believed his ex was lying about her whereabouts. She “told Jarmarus she was at her house with her mother, but Jarmarus knew for a fact she was not. When questioned by Officer King as to how he knew for a fact she was lying, Jarmarus said he used the Flock system and saw that her vehicle was elsewhere,” the affidavit reads. “Jarmarus then asked Officer King if he wanted to join him on a ‘stakeout’ to try to see where her vehicle was located.” According to Brown’s ex-girlfriend, while they were dating he would “constantly require [her] to either be on FaceTime with him or be on the phone with him, even while she was working […] Jarmarus would try to control aspects of [her] life, such as the amount of makeup she would wear and the length of her fingernails.” According to the affidavit, Brown’s stalking extended beyond license place lookups; at one point while they were dating, he put an Apple AirTag in her wallet. But the bulk of his surveillance came through Flock, the affidavit says, noting that he kept “randomly showing up at the places she was at.” The affidavit states Brown told investigators that “he would occasionally run her tag through Flock to track her whereabouts” because he believed she was lying to him. “It was dumb as hell on my end, emotions flowing, mind going,” he told investigators. The investigators ultimately determined Brown “knowingly and intentionally accessed the password protected computer systems, Flock and DAVID [a Florida DMV vehicle information database], to run the license plates of vehicles [she] frequently drove, for his own personal reasons. There was no work related, justifiable, reasons to do so, other than to track [her] whereabouts.” Brown was ultimately charged with stalking and hacking-related charges; he served one day in prison and was sentenced to five years of probation. Brown’s case was not a one-off. Local news reports from around the country repeatedly detail police abusing the Flock surveillance systemic order to stalk their partners or ex-partners. The contours of each story are much the same, with the police officer in question using their access to the system to repeatedly track a specific person over the course of weeks or months. The cases highlight the fact that Flock can be used to track the whereabouts of individual people, that police do not get a warrant in order to use the system, and that, if they have access to the system, they have the technical ability to look up any license plate they want for any reason they want. An April study by the civil rights group Institute for Justice found that at least 18 police officers have been caught around the country using Flock to stalk a romantic interest in the last few years; another database, called the ALPR Abuse Library , has documented 20 specific cases of “stalking/targeting” around the country. The known cases of police stalking are almost certainly a vast underreporting of the overall abuse, because they largely include only cases in which the behavior was so egregious that it led to police officers being fired, arrested, or both. Flock told 404 Media that it is “aware of 15 incidents of abuse, each surfaced because of the transparency and accountability features deliberately built into our platform.” “There are also 140,000 monthly active users of Flock, so the relatively rare instances of abuse, while obviously wrong and awful, are exactly that—rare,” a Flock spokesperson told 404 Media. “Humans are fallible; unlike most tools society provide law enforcement, Flock ensures that in the instances when our technology is misused, the evidence used to hold responsible parties accountable, is right there in our system. We also encourage all our customers to have a usage policy, regular training, and to implement our Audit Assistance tool , which proactively flags unintended use.” 💡 Do you know anything else about Flock? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at jason.404. Otherwise, send me an email at jason@404media.co. It is definitely the case that Flock’s audit tools have proven useful in holding police accountable, because journalists, activists, and concerned citizens from around the country have pored through Flock audit logs that they have obtained through public records requests to document abuse. But it is also the case that Flock has strenuously fought against lawsuits and potential regulations that are seeking to require police to get a warrant to use the system. And many cases of abuse have not been detected by police departments themselves but by those private citizens, journalists, and stalking victims who have found patterns of abuse in public records files they have obtained from their local police departments. In most cases of Flock-related stalking reviewed by 404 Media, the abuse occurred over the course of months or years, and the victims were subjected to dozens or hundreds of lookups. Other abuse cases have been discovered using the website HaveIBeenFlocked.com, a website that compiles Flock searches released via public records requests and turns them into a searchable database. Flock has repeatedly tried to get that website taken down, as we have previously reported . In Wisconsin , a stalking victim checked her own license plate on HaveIBeenFlocked.com and learned that City of Milwaukee Police Officer Josue Ayala had searched her license plate more than 100 times. After reporting this alleged abuse to the police, the agency ran its own audit and learned that Ayala had also searched the license plate of a second victim 124 times in a two-month span last year, according to court records. Each time, Ayala simply listed “investigation” as the reason for his search. In another alleged abuse case in Idaho, the police chief used Flock to allegedly stalk his wife using the reason “test” in the Flock system. A citizens’ anti-surveillance organizing group, called Deflock Joplin, found anomalous searches by a police officer in Joplin, Missouri, last year. Using Flock audit logs they obtained using a public records request, they found one single license plate that was searched by one specific police officer 395 times in a 10-month span in 2025; they found that a second plate had been searched 147 times (the police officer’s name was redacted in the records). “The activity presented here is startling and damning,” Deflock Joplin wrote in a blog about its investigation . “One user's account at JPD has surveilled people for around a year without detection. We see no conceivable way the Jop