Flock Safety unveils AI system that can identify drivers and map their movements

Flock Safety’s AI product, now named OS Investigate, moves beyond simple license-plate reads by identifying drivers and correlating vehicle movements across a camera network spanning over 6,000 locales. Officers can input location, time frames and behavior patterns to receive lists of plates, which the system then enriches with personal identifiers drawn from arrest records, dispatch logs and commercial databases. The software includes 69 preset natural-language prompts, such as locating frequent neighborhood vehicles or mapping repeat offenders, and allows custom queries.

Flock describes the system as a prototype under limited police trials, but privacy advocates argue it creates broad, often warrant-less access to movement data. The rollout comes amid growing political pressure, documented cases of officers misusing the company’s cameras, and recent vandalism of the hardware. Flock’s leadership acknowledges the product may evolve before broader release, while the firm plans new safeguards like abnormal-search monitoring and mandatory case codes.