Oklahoma judge rules warrantless Flock camera search violated the Constitution

Federal Judge Sara Hill in Tulsa, Oklahoma, ruled that a sheriff's deputy violated the Fourth Amendment when he searched the Flock Safety camera database for a woman's license plate without a warrant. The ruling, one of the first of its kind at the federal level, became known from a TechCrunch report on October 3, 2026.

The search itself, according to the judge, had no obvious cause other than a California license plate on the car. The deputy then used the woman's travel history from the Flock system as one of the grounds for searching the car, where 91 pounds of methamphetamine were allegedly found. Hill ruled that all evidence obtained after the database search must be excluded as "fruit of the poisonous tree."

Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance

The judge also spoke more broadly about warrantless searches of the Flock database. In her view, tracking a person's location, even in public places, becomes constitutionally problematic when police can indiscriminately and passively record routes over a long period and then use that data at any convenient opportunity. "This is a form of indiscriminate mass surveillance," Hill wrote, noting that unlike Carpenter v. United States, this is not about one person, but about a tool that collects information on all cars passing networked cameras.

The ruling does not create binding precedent, but it is one of the first cases in which a federal judge found a Flock search unconstitutional. Critics of the system are growing across the political spectrum.

Agencies Pull Back and a Bill

Several local and regional authorities, including Florida and Texas, have said they will stop using the technology. Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Block Flock Act bill, which would bar federal agencies from using automated license plate recognition systems like Flock.

Flock CEO Garrett Langley called for a compromise between privacy and safety and apologized to the women who were tracked by law enforcement officers through the system. Amid the pullbacks from the technology, the company has reportedly offered employees voluntary buyouts to reduce its staff.

Image: Flock Group Inc. Public domain

Translation editors: Соловьев В., Пеков А.