Henrico County, Virginia just did what no county its size has done: ended its contract with Flock Safety and ordered all 122 of its license plate cameras removed — the largest Flock network in the state, dismantled over officer misconduct elsewhere.
Board of Supervisors Chair Roscoe Cooper said the county is confident Henrico police used the system appropriately, “but we cannot ignore the potential for misuse of system data by others. Ending this contract is the right thing to do for our residents and community.”
He isn’t talking about hypotheticals. The misuse keeps getting proven, county by county.
In Indiana, the story is Officer Jeffery Bornes of Kokomo. Between February 19 and 28, he ran 18 searches on the same private vehicle — one prosecutors say belonged to his ex-spouse. Every search was logged with the same excuse: “welfare check.” What caught him wasn’t a whistleblower. It was an audit. Kokomo PD reviewed more than 9,000 officer searches, spotted the pattern, and handed the case to Howard County Prosecutor Mark McCann, who put it plainly: officers are given access “to do police work, not to look up people in their personal lives.” Bornes is charged with official misconduct — a Level 6 felony — plus two fraud counts. Bond: $12,000.
In Georgia, the same week, Athens-Clarke County fired Officer Tyler Vaughn after an internal investigation found he’d searched his ex-girlfriend’s plate several times over a week in 2025. It took another officer reporting him. The GBI is now reviewing the case for criminal charges, and the department’s new policy restricts Flock searches to supervisors and above. Chief Jerry Saulters said the misuse is “a serious violation of the trust placed in our officers.”
And Georgia’s 2026 ledger reads like a series, not a story: four Cherokee County deputies charged in August after more than two years of misuse. Five Albany officers arrested in July. Four Savannah employees arrested in August. A Habersham County deputy fired and arrested in July. Roughly twenty badged employees in one state, one year — all caught on the same camera system selling the same lie: that the data was only for police work.
Virginia’s answer is spreading. Arlington County voted in September to pull its 41 Flock cameras within 14 days. Fairfax County paused new installations pending a privacy review. And state Senator Mike Jones has a bill that would automatically decertify any officer caught misusing plate readers — plus require warrants for searches. Governor-elect Spanberger called total removal “overly simplistic,” which tells you the political fight is just starting.
The cameras aren’t the scandal. The scandal is that access to a year of your movements was one search bar away from every officer with a grudge — until an audit caught one in Indiana and a county in Virginia decided it wasn’t worth the risk.
Arlington did it in 14 days. Henrico is doing it this week. Ask your council who’s watching the plate-reader logs — and who audited them last.
Your plate is just one of thousands of ways your location and personal info gets bought and sold. Optery finds where yours is exposed and removes it automatically. We earn a commission if you sign up — it costs you nothing extra.
