This website lets you check if your license plate was ever searched on Flock's cameras

A newly launched website called Have I Been Flocked provides users with the ability to search for their license plates within Flock's camera network to determine if authorities or others with access have conducted searches on the same plates. The website is a valuable tool in the ongoing debate surrounding AI-powered surveillance cameras in the United States, which have become a subject of growing controversy.

Flock's AI-powered cameras, installed in around 6,000 communities across the US, automatically log license plate information from passing vehicles into a searchable database. While authorities claim these cameras help solve crimes, privacy advocates express concerns about the surveillance state's reach, reliability, and the motivations behind certain authorities' use of the technology.

Although Have I Been Flocked cannot determine whether a specific vehicle has passed under a Flock camera or whether its license plate is present in the company's database, it can still uncover search queries associated with the user's license plate. However, this does not guarantee that no one has searched the plate, as the website only accesses a fraction of Flock's database.

The functionality of this search engine relies on the public disclosure of Flock's search logs in some communities and the collection of public information requests, many of which are obtained through MuckRock, a platform that compiles Freedom of Information Act requests. Users are also encouraged to submit their own FOIA records to Have I Been Flocked, enabling the website to identify the specific officers who entered each query and determine if the search was unusual.

The website goes a step further by attempting to correlate the shortened names of officers with public police employment records and comparing searches with patterns indicating when each Flock user typically conducts warrantless searches. Despite these efforts, Have I Been Flocked claims that it does not store visitors' data, offering an alternative approach to combating the surveillance state.

As the debate surrounding AI-powered surveillance cameras continues, other tactics have emerged. For instance, a viral internet meme briefly tricked Google's AI summaries into claiming Flock cameras contain gold, while a cybersecurity researcher demonstrated patterns that prevent the AI network from identifying vehicles and people.