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At least seven other Georgia law enforcement officers were fired this month and charged with misusing the technology.

That includes a Henry County police officer who was fired and arrested last week following an investigation into his access of the Flock network, authorities there said.

I'm not sure what to think here. Legitimate misuse, sure. But the article says at least one person only looked up their own license plate. I feel like that should be considered acceptable. It's not law enforcement usage specifically, but can't I grant myself the right to see information on my own vehicle?

Yes, devil's advocate could say if standard citizens can't, no one can. Just seems so minor it's not worth losing a job over. All other cases (including plates of family which you don't directly own), yes, investigate fully and apply appropriate actions.

In a way, new companies like Flock entering such domains are a boon because they probably maintain tight audit logs and alerting mechanisms.

Traditional look-up software is probably being misused by cops all the time (à la the old noir trope of a PI having "a buddy in the department" who can look up anything for him).

Flock: You thought we put the cameras up to spy on you. Haha on the police who buy them and rat themselves out!
Gosh, no one could have predicted this.
If you want a bit of irony, look up the Flock CEO’s home address (not terribly difficult). You will see it’s blurred out on Google Maps Street View
I’d have a lot less heartburn with these types of systems if the system prevented mass data exfiltration by organizations (so they can’t simply retain the non-evidence themselves), and limited ALL non-anonymized data retention to the prior 30 days unless there is a signed court order. To me, that is a perfectly reasonable compromise between safety and privacy. No articulated suspicion to a judge means your data evaporates after 30 days.