Georgia Police Keep Getting Caught Misusing License-Plate Surveillance — And the List Keeps Growing
How many law-enforcement officers have to misuse a surveillance database before we stop calling each case an isolated incident?
Georgia may be getting close to answering that question.
Over roughly the past year, at least 20 Georgia law-enforcement personnel have reportedly been implicated in allegations involving improper access to Flock Safety or other automated license plate reader information.
Police officers. Sheriff's deputies. Sergeants. Lieutenants. A police chief. And now a supervisor working inside a Real-Time Crime Center.
The allegations stretch across multiple Georgia jurisdictions.
Some employees allegedly searched people they personally knew. Some allegedly searched relatives, friends or acquaintances. Some cases include stalking allegations. Others involved searches authorities say had absolutely no legitimate law-enforcement purpose.
Several officers have been fired. Others have been arrested. Some face felony violation-of-oath charges in addition to allegations involving improper license-plate-data access.
And something particularly important has begun happening:
Departments started looking at the audit logs.
They didn't like what they found.
THE LATEST: CONYERS
The newest case surfaced in July 2026.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced the arrest of Paige Forte, a dispatcher supervisor with the Conyers Police Department.
The GBI charged Forte with misuse of a license plate reader system following an investigation into her alleged use of Flock Safety.
According to the GBI, Conyers Police contacted the agency after an internal audit uncovered possible misuse.
Investigators allege Forte accessed Flock information more than 30 times between April and July for purposes unrelated to legitimate law enforcement.
The GBI says its investigation remains active.
The significance isn't merely another name being added to the list.
Forte worked as a supervisor in a police department operating a Real-Time Crime Center. The people entrusted with sophisticated surveillance systems are supposed to be among the people protecting those systems against misuse.
Now one of those supervisors has herself been arrested over alleged misuse.
THREE OFFICERS OUT IN FAYETTEVILLE
Only days earlier, another internal audit produced another result.
The Fayetteville Police Department fired three officers after discovering unauthorized searches involving Flock's license plate reader system.
According to the department, the searches involved the officers' own license plates and plates belonging to family members, friends or acquaintances.
Police determined the searches weren't connected with legitimate law-enforcement activity.
Three officers.
One department.
All discovered after somebody examined the system.
A 17-YEAR DEKALB VETERAN
Then there is DeKalb County.
Former Sheriff's Sgt. Kabiru Salawu had spent nearly 17 years with the agency.
He was fired and arrested in July following an investigation into alleged unauthorized use of Flock technology.
Authorities charged him with felony violation of oath by a public officer and misdemeanor misuse of license plate data.
Another department. Another experienced law-enforcement employee. Another allegation involving access to a surveillance system capable of helping authorities locate people's vehicles.
FIVE OFFICERS IN ALBANY
Albany produced one of the largest individual clusters we've found.
Five former Albany Police Department officers were arrested following a GBI investigation into alleged misuse of the city's Flock system.
According to the GBI, the investigation began after Albany Police requested an independent review.
An internal audit had reportedly discovered officers accessing retained license plate information on multiple occasions for purposes unrelated to law enforcement.
All five were no longer employed by the department when the GBI announced their arrests.
Five officers.
Not five departments.
Five officers inside a single police department.
CHEROKEE COUNTY
Three Cherokee County Sheriff's Office employees were also arrested following allegations involving improper license plate reader access.
The accused included supervisory personnel.
Again, the allegation wasn't that hackers broke into Flock.
It wasn't that criminals stole police passwords.
The alleged problem came from inside law enforcement itself.
RICHMOND COUNTY
A Richmond County sheriff's deputy was arrested and fired after investigators concluded that a license plate reader system had allegedly been accessed for personal reasons rather than legitimate police work.
The deputy faced charges including violation of oath of office and an offense involving prohibited use or retention of license plate information.
Another agency. Another employee entrusted with government surveillance access. Another alleged personal use.
HENRY COUNTY
Henry County joined the list as well.
An officer was fired and charged after an audit allegedly revealed Flock information being accessed for non-law-enforcement purposes.
Again: the audit found it.
ECHOLS COUNTY: WHEN DATABASE MISUSE MEETS STALKING
One of the more disturbing cases involves a former Echols County Sheriff's Office employee.
Anna Altobello was charged with multiple counts involving alleged misuse of license plate data, along with stalking-related charges and violation of oath of office.
Authorities alleged she improperly accessed information concerning people she personally knew.
This is precisely the type of danger privacy advocates have warned about.
A surveillance database doesn't have to be abused by an entire government.
One person with legitimate credentials can potentially abuse legitimate access.
THE POLICE CHIEF
Then there is Braselton.
Former Police Chief Michael Steffman wasn't a rookie patrol officer unfamiliar with departmental policy.
He ran the police department.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation accused Steffman of improperly using automated license plate reader systems in connection with alleged harassment and stalking involving multiple people.
He resigned.
Think about what that does to the standard argument that internal supervision will protect citizens from surveillance abuse.
What happens when the person who is supposed to provide the supervision is himself accused of abusing the system?
THE GEORGIA LIST KEEPS GROWING
Prison Project is continuing to verify these cases individually because different news organizations count this problem differently.
Some count only arrests. Others include officers fired or disciplined without criminal charges. Some count incidents occurring during a particular calendar year. Others count roughly the previous twelve months.
We're not going to manufacture a precise number simply because it makes a better headline.
What we can responsibly say is this:
At least 20 Georgia law-enforcement personnel have reportedly been implicated in Flock or automated-license-plate-reader misuse allegations over roughly the past year.
The cases span numerous agencies across the state:
- Albany
- Braselton
- Cherokee County
- Conyers
- DeKalb County
- Echols County
- Fayetteville
- Greene County
- Henry County
- Richmond County
Additional cases remain under review for inclusion in Prison Project's verified statewide record.
At some point, the explanation can't simply be: "Another bad employee."
THE MOST IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENT MAY BE THE AUDITS
Look closely at how several of these cases were discovered.
Audits.
Albany's case followed an internal review.
Fayetteville discovered unauthorized searches through an audit.
Conyers reported suspicious activity after reviewing Flock use.
Other Georgia departments have begun examining their own access.
That's encouraging. Departments should audit these systems.
But it creates another question that deserves an answer:
WHY DID IT TAKE THIS LONG?
If auditing a surveillance database suddenly begins uncovering unauthorized searches across Georgia, the obvious question isn't merely how many officers are being caught today.
- How many improper searches happened yesterday?
- How many happened last year?
- How many departments weren't routinely reviewing their audit logs?
- How many questionable searches were never investigated?
- How many are happening right now in departments that still aren't looking?
THE SYSTEM DIDN'T NECESSARILY STOP THE MISUSE
This distinction matters.
An audit can reveal misconduct after it happens.
That's accountability.
It isn't necessarily prevention.
If an employee can search someone's license plate for an improper purpose and the system records that search, the audit trail can potentially help investigators catch that person later.
Good.
But the employee may already have obtained the information.
That's why "everything is logged" isn't a complete answer to the privacy problem.
The important questions are:
- Who can perform a search?
- What justification must be entered?
- Is that justification independently verified?
- Are certain searches blocked before results are returned?
- Are supervisors alerted immediately to suspicious searches?
- How frequently are audit logs actually reviewed?
- What happens when the supervisor is the person allegedly abusing the database?
GEORGIA ACTUALLY HAS A LAW AGAINST THIS
Georgia lawmakers recognized the danger of automated license plate reader misuse.
State law restricts improper law-enforcement use of captured license plate information.
That matters.
Some of the people we're discussing have actually been arrested because Georgia created legal consequences for abusing these systems.
Georgia deserves credit when agencies investigate their own personnel and prosecutors pursue legitimate cases.
But those prosecutions prove something else:
The possibility of abuse wasn't theoretical.
People entrusted with access allegedly used it anyway.
AND FLOCK IS HEADQUARTERED IN GEORGIA
There's an irony running through this entire story.
Flock Safety is a Georgia company.
Its headquarters are here.
Georgia became one of the country's largest proving grounds for its technology.
Law-enforcement agencies across the state adopted automated license plate readers as powerful crime-fighting tools.
Now Georgia is also becoming one of America's clearest case studies in what happens when people entrusted with surveillance power allegedly use it for something else.
That makes Georgia important nationally.
Other states don't need to imagine what internal ALPR abuse might look like.
They can study us.
THE TEXAS CASE SHOWS THE OTHER HALF OF THE PROBLEM
Prison Project recently documented another extraordinary Flock investigation outside Georgia.
A Texas sheriff's office searching for a woman following a self-managed abortion conducted a Flock query reaching 6,809 networks containing 83,345 cameras.
That case demonstrated the enormous geographic reach of interconnected ALPR surveillance.
Georgia's cases demonstrate the human-access problem.
Put the two together.
A surveillance system becomes extraordinarily powerful. Then government employees receive access to that infrastructure.
That's why safeguards matter.
READ NEXT
THE SEARCH THAT REACHED 83,345 CAMERAS
How One Texas Investigation Exposed Flock's Nationwide Surveillance Network
Find this investigation and our complete coverage through the Prison Project Flock Safety Hub.
THIS ISN'T AN ARGUMENT THAT FLOCK NEVER SOLVES CRIMES
It does.
Police departments have used automated license plate readers to locate stolen vehicles, identify suspects and develop leads in serious criminal investigations.
Ignoring those successes would make this investigation dishonest.
But successful police investigations don't answer the surveillance question.
In fact, they demonstrate why the technology deserves serious oversight.
A useless database isn't particularly dangerous.
A database capable of finding people across enormous geographic areas is another matter entirely.
The more powerful the tool becomes, the stronger its safeguards need to become.
THE "BAD APPLE" PROBLEM
Every profession contains people who violate rules.
Law enforcement isn't different.
It would therefore be unreasonable to claim that twenty alleged offenders prove every Georgia officer is abusing Flock.
They don't.
Thousands of Georgia law-enforcement officers may use these systems entirely appropriately.
But "bad apples" becomes an inadequate policy response when the same type of misconduct repeatedly appears across unrelated agencies.
At that point government has to examine the barrel.
- Are permissions too broad?
- Are audits too infrequent?
- Are supervisors actually reviewing searches?
- Can employees search people they personally know?
- Are departments sharing information too widely?
- Should particularly intrusive historical searches require supervisory approval?
- Should some searches require warrants?
- Should citizens receive stronger statutory protections?
Those are system questions.
Systems don't get fixed by firing one employee and declaring the problem solved.
WE'RE BUILDING THE GEORGIA FLOCK MISUSE LEDGER
Prison Project isn't going to publish this story once and forget about it.
We're building a continuing Georgia record documenting:
- Officer or employee
- Agency
- Date discovered
- Alleged conduct
- Number of searches when available
- How the conduct was discovered
- Employment action
- Criminal charges
- Case disposition
- Source documents supporting each entry
When somebody is acquitted, we'll record it.
When charges are dismissed, we'll record that.
When someone is convicted, we'll record that too.
The purpose isn't to manufacture a scandal. The purpose is to determine the actual scale of the problem.
HELP US BUILD THE RECORD
If you work for a Georgia government agency and know about improper ALPR access, Prison Project wants to hear from you.
If you've obtained Flock audit logs, contracts, search histories, policies, disciplinary records or government emails through a Georgia Open Records Act request, we want those too.
Citizens don't have to wait for journalists.
Ask your own police department:
- How many employees have Flock access?
- How many searches were performed last year?
- How many searches were flagged by an audit?
- How many employees were disciplined?
- How often are audit logs reviewed?
- Which outside agencies can search your jurisdiction's information?
Prison Project's Flock Safety Hub is being built to help citizens ask those questions and understand the answers.
SURVEILLANCE CAN BECOME AN ARREST
Flock isn't merely an abstract privacy debate.
A database hit can produce a police encounter. That encounter can produce detention. And detention can become an arrest.
Families are frequently completely unprepared for what happens next.
THE FIRST 72 HOURS AFTER AN ARREST MATTER
Prison Project created the First 72 Hours Action Pack to give families a practical plan during those critical first three days after an arrest.
It includes step-by-step guidance, checklists and worksheets designed to help families document what happened, organize critical information and begin preparing for what comes next.
Complete Action Pack: $27
GET THE FIRST 72 HOURS ACTION PACK →
Purchasing Prison Project resources also helps fund investigations like this one.
FOLLOW THE FLOCK FILES
FLOCK ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE LAW is part of Prison Project's continuing Flock Safety investigation.
We're tracking:
- Georgia officer misuse
- National surveillance controversies
- Federal and immigration access
- Interstate data sharing
- Constitutional challenges
- Government contracts
- Public-records discoveries
- Communities restricting or abandoning Flock
- Significant new developments as we verify them
Because the question isn't whether surveillance technology can catch people.
Clearly it can.
WHO IS WATCHING THE PEOPLE DOING THE WATCHING?
FOLLOW THE FLOCK FILES
Investigations. Records. Lawsuits. Misuse. Surveillance. Accountability.
Prison Project will continue updating the record as new information becomes available.
FLOCK ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE LAW
A continuing Prison Project investigation.