OS Investigate (Flock AI surveillance tool) is an artificial-intelligence–driven investigative product, previously called Nightshift, that Flock Safety is developing and testing with a small group of law enforcement partners. Flock Safety’s network of cameras logs vehicles across more than 6,000 U.S. communities, and the company describes OS Investigate as a separate product from its license-plate readers. Wired reported that it extracted the tool’s system code from files served on Flock’s site login pages.
OS Investigate contains 69 preloaded prompts. Fourteen of those prompts require no license plate, name, or vehicle description as inputs. The prompts are included in the system configuration and are available to be executed without those identifying fields. The prompt set is a built-in part of the product.
The system counts how often other license plates appear at the same cameras within a two-minute window of a target vehicle. It flags plates that appear three or more times within that window when the system assigns a confidence score above 0.75. The flagged results can return up to 20 names. A workup feature takes a returned name and birth date and produces relatives, phone numbers, and online accounts drawn from police records and commercial data brokers.
The workup feature in OS Investigate uses a name and birth date as inputs to retrieve relatives, phone numbers, and online accounts. Those items are pulled from police records and commercial data brokers. The feature returns that assembled information as part of an investigative output. The system has preloaded prompts, some of which run without license plate, name, or vehicle description inputs.
Flock describes OS Investigate as a product separate from traditional license-plate readers. The company states the product is built to help investigators work across records their agencies already hold. The company also asserts that the technology cannot recognize, identify, or track individuals. The company says the product is not for watching people.
Activists sprayed-painting, taping over, and destroying Flock cameras. The Guardian counted at least 33 such incidents across 23 states. Those incidents occurred during June and July.
The Institute for Justice reports over two dozen cases. Those cases include officers resigning or being arrested. The allegations in the reported cases concern officers using license-plate readers to stalk current or former partners.
Reporting and legal documentation have captured instances of vandalism and alleged misuse related to Flock Safety’s cameras. The Guardian and the Institute for Justice are the named sources for those accounts.
Stakeholders have expressed skepticism and alarm about OS Investigate’s capabilities. One quoted remark said, “I don’t know how else to say this, but this sounds completely insane.” Another quoted statement said, “I don’t know how anyone can argue against the idea that Flock literally tracks people.” Those remarks were made by people reacting to the product’s disclosed functions.
Flock Safety states that OS Investigate is a product separate from traditional license-plate readers and says the technology cannot recognize, identify, or track individuals and is not for watching people. Reporting documents activists spraying-painting, taping over, and destroying Flock cameras, with The Guardian counting at least 33 incidents across 23 states in June and July. The Institute for Justice reports over two dozen cases where officers resigned or were arrested in alleged incidents involving license-plate readers used to stalk current or former partners. Those accounts form part of the public context for criticism about surveillance scope and potential misuse.
