If an officer stopped you in Tampa and mentioned a “hit” on your plate, a camera on a pole may have made the first decision in your case before any person did. I’m Rocky Brancato, founder of The Brancato Law Firm, P.A., a Tampa criminal defense firm, and a former police academy instructor who has spent more than 25 years in Hillsborough County courtrooms. I taught officers how stops are supposed to work, and our attorneys now use that training to test whether a plate-reader alert gave police a lawful reason to pull a car over.

What Is a Flock Camera?

A Flock camera is an automated license plate reader sold by Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company that is one of the largest ALPR vendors in the country. Florida law, in section 316.0777, Florida Statutes, defines an automated license plate recognition system as one or more mobile or fixed high-speed cameras combined with computer algorithms that convert images of license plates into computer-readable data. Flock’s version also records the vehicle’s make, color, and distinguishing features such as roof racks or bumper stickers, which Flock markets as a “Vehicle Fingerprint.”

The cameras take still photographs of the rear of passing cars, not continuous video of drivers. Each read is time-stamped and stored in a database that the agency that owns the camera can search, and agencies can choose to share access with other agencies. The Brancato Law Firm treats every ALPR read in a case as evidence with a source, a time stamp, and an error rate that can be tested.

Does Florida Have Flock Cameras, and Are They Legal?

Yes. ALPRs, including Flock cameras, are legal in Florida, and law enforcement agencies, cities, homeowners associations, and businesses across Tampa Bay use them. Section 316.0777(2)(b) lets the Department of Transportation, at its discretion, allow a law enforcement agency to install an ALPR in the right-of-way of a state highway for the purpose of collecting active criminal intelligence or investigative information. The same statute says an ALPR may not be used to issue a traffic citation or notice of violation, and that a camera must come down within 30 days after the department tells the agency to remove it.

The department used that power on August 31, 2026. FDOT Engineering and Operations Memorandum No. 26-01 revoked every approval for law enforcement ALPRs on state highway rights-of-way, gave agencies 30 days to remove them, and stopped issuing new permits. The memo cited “the recent exponential increase in deployments” and “concerning reports of misuse, data privacy concerns, and surveillance schemes.” The order does not reach cameras on city or county roads, private property, or HOA entrances, so many Flock cameras in Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties remain in place. Our attorneys at The Brancato Law Firm check where the camera in a client’s case was mounted and whether its permit was valid on the date of the read.

Are There Flock Cameras in Tampa, Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco?

Yes. All three counties’ largest law enforcement agencies have used license plate readers, and each responded differently to the state order. In September 2026, the Tampa Police Department said it would remove 17 cameras on the State Highway System and reported that its readers had aided in 622 arrests, recovered 485 vehicles and 68 firearms, and helped in 14 missing persons cases, according to WUSF reporting on the removals. The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office said it was removing all 70 of its Flock cameras in county and state rights-of-way. The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office declined to say how many cameras had to come down, citing a public records exemption.

In Pinellas County, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told county commissioners in October 2026 that his office runs 79 stationary cameras under a Flock contract costing $287,000 a year, according to Bay News 9. That presentation came about a week after a former Pinellas deputy was arrested on felony charges for allegedly running a license plate reader database about 300 times to track a woman. Prosecutors dropped that deputy’s charges on October 29, 2026, and on November 5, 2026, a third former Pinellas deputy, Ronald Scott, was arrested after an agency audit found more than 100 unauthorized Flock and driver’s license searches on his estranged wife and her circle. Our separate guide on whether police can be charged for misusing Flock cameras in Florida covers that side of the issue.

These agency figures describe what the cameras find, and they leave out what defense lawyers see. In a 2019 study published in Police Quarterly, George Mason University researchers Christopher Koper and Cynthia Lum examined a city that installed nearly 100 fixed readers and found that clearances for auto theft and robbery improved, but the improvements were not statistically significant once other factors were controlled (National Criminal Justice Reference Service abstract). A camera network produces many reads; each read still has to be connected to the right car, the right driver, and the right moment.

Can a Flock Camera Hit Lead to a Traffic Stop and Arrest in Tampa?

Yes. A plate-reader alert can lead to a stop, but the officer must still have reasonable suspicion that the specific car or driver is involved in a crime or traffic violation. Florida’s stop law, section 901.151, Florida Statutes, and the Fourth Amendment both require it. The usual sequence in Hillsborough County looks like this:

1. The camera reads a plate and the system matches it to a hotlist entry, such as a stolen vehicle, a warrant, or a be-on-the-lookout alert.
2. Nearby officers receive the alert with the read’s location, time, and photo.
3. An officer finds the car and decides whether to stop it.
4. During the stop, the officer may find a suspended license, drugs, a weapon, or a warrant, and that is where most criminal cases start.

Kansas v. Glover: what a database check can and cannot justify

In Kansas v. Glover, 589 U.S. 376 (2020), a Kansas deputy ran a pickup’s plate, learned the registered owner’s license was revoked, and stopped the truck without seeing any traffic violation. The U.S. Supreme Court held the stop was lawful because it was reasonable to infer that the owner was driving, and the deputy had no information suggesting otherwise. The Court stressed that its holding was narrow: if the officer knows facts that undercut the inference, such as an owner in his mid-sixties and a driver who looks to be in her mid-twenties, the database result alone does not justify the stop. Our attorneys look for those facts in the body-camera video.

State v. Teamer: a mismatch in the database is not enough by itself

In State v. Teamer, 151 So. 3d 421 (Fla. 2014), a deputy ran a plate and saw that the registration listed a different color than the car in front of him. The Florida Supreme Court held that the color discrepancy alone did not give reasonable suspicion for a stop, because it is not illegal in Florida to repaint a car without telling the state, and ordered the defendant discharged. Flock’s “Vehicle Fingerprint” records the same kind of color and feature data, so Teamer gives our attorneys a Florida Supreme Court rule for stops based on a description mismatch in the system.

These cases matter at more than one stage. A stop that lacked reasonable suspicion can be challenged with a motion to suppress before trial, and if the motion succeeds, the drugs, weapon, or statements found after the stop can be excluded. For impaired-driving arrests that began with a plate-reader alert, our Tampa DUI lawyer page explains how the stop is evaluated with the rest of the case.

Is a License Plate Scan a Search Under the Fourth Amendment?

Usually not. Courts have generally held that photographing a license plate on a public road is not a Fourth Amendment search, because the plate is displayed for anyone to see. The harder question is what happens when police search weeks of stored reads to reconstruct where a person drove, and no Florida appellate decision we have found resolves that question for ALPR databases.

The guidepost is Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018). The Supreme Court held that obtaining 127 days of historical cell-site location records was a search that generally requires a warrant, because the records gave an all-encompassing picture of the person’s movements. The Court called its decision narrow and said it was not calling into question conventional surveillance tools such as security cameras. Defense lawyers nationwide argue that a dense ALPR network can approach the tracking Carpenter described; prosecutors answer that scattered plate photos are closer to a security camera. The Brancato Law Firm raises the argument when the State’s case depends on a long history of reads rather than a single alert.

Historical searches are already being used as trial evidence in Florida. In Mathis v. State, No. 4D2024-1543 (Fla. 4th DCA Apr. 8, 2026), a Broward County second-degree murder case, license plate readers in Lighthouse Point captured the defendant’s car following the victim’s van into the city and leaving about six minutes later, and the reader database showed the car had never been in Lighthouse Point before. The Fourth District affirmed the conviction, relying on that evidence along with DNA, video, and phone records. The case shows how an ALPR history becomes part of a circumstantial case, which is why our attorneys demand the full search log, not just the reads the State chose to print.

Who Can See Flock Camera Data, and How Long Is It Kept?

In Florida, ALPR images and data that contain personal identifying information are confidential and exempt from public records requests under section 316.0777(3). The statute allows the information to be shared with criminal justice agencies performing their official duties, and it gives one important right to drivers: information relating to a license plate registered to you may be disclosed to you, unless it is active criminal intelligence or active criminal investigative information. The Brancato Law Firm uses that provision, along with criminal discovery, to obtain the reads of a client’s own plate.

Retention is capped by section 316.0778, Florida Statutes, which directs the Department of State, in consultation with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, to set a maximum retention period by schedule. Agencies often keep data for much less. Flock’s long-standing default was 30 days, and on August 13, 2026, Flock’s CEO announced that the company recommends agencies cut retention to seven days, according to WECT reporting. A shorter retention period means a defense request has to go out fast, before the reads that help a client are deleted.

Do Flock Cameras Record Speed or Share Data With ICE?

Flock license plate readers do not measure speed. School-zone speed cameras are a separate system governed by section 316.1896, Florida Statutes, which bars using those cameras for remote surveillance, limits their photos and video to school-zone speeding enforcement and incidents captured along the way, and requires the images to be destroyed within 90 days after final disposition. Tampa’s school-zone program uses RedSpeed cameras, and Tampa police told the City Council in July 2026 that the cameras will not include license plate readers or share data with Flock, according to the Pineapple Report.

On immigration, Flock says it does not contract directly with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but local agencies can share the data they collect. Suncoast Searchlight reported in 2025 that the Florida Highway Patrol ran more than 250 immigration-related searches of the Flock network between March 13 and May 5, 2025 (WUSF republication). If a family member was stopped and questioned about immigration status, our attorneys defend the criminal case and coordinate with immigration counsel on the immigration side. Our firm has Spanish-speaking staff, and attorney Jean-Luc Adrien speaks Spanish, Haitian Creole, and French, so families can talk through what happened in their own language.

How Do Our Attorneys Challenge License Plate Reader Evidence?

Our attorneys challenge ALPR evidence by testing the read, the alert, the stop, and the data trail, in that order. These are the questions we answer first:

1. Was the plate read correctly? We obtain the raw image and compare every character. Plate-reading software can confuse similar characters, and a misread can send officers after the wrong car.
2. Was the alert still valid? We obtain the hotlist entry and its time stamp. A stolen car that was recovered or a warrant that was cleared can stay on a list after it should have been removed.
3. Did the officer confirm before stopping? Under Glover and Teamer, we look at what the officer saw: whether the car, the driver, and the alert actually matched.
4. Was the camera lawfully placed? After FDOT Memorandum No. 26-01, a camera still operating on a state right-of-way after the removal deadline is a fact worth litigating.
5. Who searched the data, and why? We request the audit log of searches on the client’s plate, which can reveal fishing expeditions or misuse.
6. Was the data preserved? We send preservation requests early, because short retention periods can erase reads that support the defense.

Drug, weapon, and stolen-vehicle cases often begin with a plate-reader stop, and our Tampa drug crimes attorney page describes how we defend the charges that follow. When someone learns that investigators are pulling plate-reader history before any arrest, our representation before charges are filed can address the investigation directly.

What Should You Do If Police Stop You Because of a License Plate Reader?

Stay calm, do not argue about the camera at the roadside, and protect the record. The stop itself is where the strongest defenses are built, so details matter:

• Ask, calmly, why you were stopped, and remember the officer’s exact words about a “hit” or “alert.”
• Do not consent to a search of your car; you can say so politely.
• Do not answer questions about where you have been; the reads already tell police where the car went.
• Write down the time, the street, and the direction you were driving as soon as you can.
• Call a defense attorney quickly so preservation requests go out before the data is deleted.

Frequently Asked Questions About Flock Cameras in Florida

Are Flock cameras being removed from Florida roads?

Yes, Flock and other law enforcement license plate readers on state highway rights-of-way had to come down within 30 days of the FDOT memorandum issued August 31, 2026. The Brancato Law Firm checks whether the camera in a client’s case sat on a state, county, city, or private site, because only state rights-of-way were covered.

Who pays for Flock cameras in Tampa Bay?

Taxpayers pay for law enforcement cameras through agency contracts, and HOAs or businesses pay for the cameras they buy. Our attorneys at The Brancato Law Firm request the contract and sharing settings in cases where a private camera fed an alert to police, as with the Pinellas Sheriff’s $287,000-a-year Flock contract reported in October 2026.

Can police use a Flock camera to give me a speeding or red-light ticket?

No, an ALPR installed on a state highway may not be used to issue a traffic citation or notice of violation under section 316.0777. The Brancato Law Firm separates camera-based school-zone and red-light tickets, which have their own statutes, from criminal stops that start with a plate-reader alert; see our Hillsborough County criminal defense attorney page for the criminal side.

Can I find out whether a Flock camera recorded my car?

Often yes, because section 316.0777(4)(b) allows information about a plate registered to you to be disclosed to you unless it is active criminal intelligence or investigative information. When a client is charged, The Brancato Law Firm obtains those reads through discovery, which reaches more than a public records request.

Can a license plate reader stop be thrown out in Florida?

Yes, if the officer lacked reasonable suspicion for the specific car and driver, the evidence from the stop can be suppressed. Our attorneys at The Brancato Law Firm build those motions around the raw image, the hotlist time stamp, and the body-camera video, using Teamer and Glover as the framework, including in St. Petersburg and Clearwater cases covered on our Pinellas County criminal defense page.

Are Flock cameras the same as police misusing the database?

No, using the cameras is legal, but searching the database for personal reasons can be a crime for the officer who does it. The Brancato Law Firm explains those charges in our guide to police misuse of Flock cameras in Florida.

For how The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. defends these cases, see our Tampa internet crimes defense practice.

Talk to a Tampa Defense Attorney About a License Plate Reader Stop

Write down where and when you were stopped, then call us before the reads are deleted. The Brancato Law Firm, P.A., founded by Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Rocky Brancato, can be reached at (813) 727-7159, and our attorneys will start by requesting the raw image, the alert record, and the search log for your plate. Call us at any hour; our office is two blocks from the courthouse. Our firm has Spanish-speaking staff, and attorney Jean-Luc Adrien speaks Spanish, Haitian Creole, and French.

For more about our defense strategies, visit our Tampa DUI Lawyer page.

The Brancato Law Firm, P.A.
620 E. Twiggs Street, Suite 205, Tampa, FL 33602
(813) 727-7159
Serving Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties

The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. is a Tampa-based criminal defense practice. We are not affiliated with any other Brancato-named law firms.

Officers who misuse a license plate reader leave a record of every search, and that audit trail decides these cases on both sides. I’m Rocky Brancato, founder of The Brancato Law Firm, P.A., a Tampa criminal defense firm, and a former Chief Operations Officer of the Hillsborough County Public Defender’s Office, where I oversaw a staff of over 100 attorneys. I also taught at the police academy and am on call for the Tampa PBA and Suncoast PBA. Today our attorneys handle license plate reader cases from both sides of the badge: people whose movements were tracked, and officers accused of tracking them.

Our earlier guide, What Are Flock Cameras and ALPRs in Tampa?, explains how the cameras work. This article covers what happens when the people with access abuse it.

What Happened in the Pinellas County Deputy Arrests?

Three former Pinellas County deputies have been arrested in about five weeks in separate cases involving personal use of law enforcement databases, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri announced. Travis Stanton and Karl Gwynne were arrested on September 30, 2026, and Ronald Scott on November 5, 2026. All three resigned before their arrests, and each is presumed innocent. The facts of the first two arrests come from the sheriff’s public account, as reported by IONTB.

The 17-year-old and the “ALPR hit” that never happened

Former Deputy Travis Stanton, 33, was a community deputy in Seminole. According to the sheriff, a 17-year-old restaurant worker told him her age and her car on July 28, 2026. Minutes later, Stanton allegedly ran her plate through the Florida Crime Information Center (FCIC) and then used other databases to identify her mother’s household and pull driver’s license photos of the girl and her twin sister. On August 19, he allegedly ran more searches from the Seminole High School parking lot, entering the reason code “verifying an identity.”

Stanton later told the girl he had received an ALPR alert showing her license was suspended for truancy. Gualtieri said no such alert existed, and that Stanton’s case did not involve misuse of the ALPR database itself. He was arrested on charges of unlawful access to a computer network under section 815.06 and official misconduct under section 838.022. Prosecutors later chose different charges. Court records show Stanton is now charged with harassment by use of personal identification information under section 817.568, charged as a third-degree felony, and stalking under section 784.048, a first-degree misdemeanor, the Tampa Bay Times reported. His arraignment is set for November 16, 2026.

381 searches of one woman across five databases

Former Deputy Karl Gwynne, 57, joined the agency in 2005. According to the sheriff, he ran 381 searches on a 35-year-old woman across five databases between January 2025 and July 2026, including 300 ALPR searches. He made 207 of them off duty. Gwynne had arrested the woman in 2010, and she had rejected his advances. He was arrested on four counts of unlawfully accessing a computer system and one count of official misconduct. On October 29, 2026, Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bruce Bartlett filed a no information, dropping all five charges. Bartlett wrote that current Florida statutes “do not address the wrongful conduct reported” and said his office would ask the Legislature to correct the problem next session, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Gualtieri attributed the decision to disagreements over the elements of the statute and noted that a no information does not stop prosecutors from refiling. A no information is not an acquittal, so the audit trail still matters if the state brings the case back.

Third arrest: tracking an estranged wife through Flock

Former Deputy Ronald Scott, 35, joined the agency in 2016. According to the sheriff, from February 14, 2026, until his divorce became final in June, Scott ran more than 100 unauthorized queries through the Flock license plate reader system and driver’s license records, often off duty. He searched his estranged wife, her boyfriend, the boyfriend’s wife, and his wife’s father, and entered false reasons for the searches, including claims of ongoing investigations. An agency audit uncovered them. Scott resigned on November 4, 2026, and was arrested the next morning on three counts of unlawfully accessing a computer and one count of official misconduct, the same charges prosecutors dropped against Gwynne. Bond was set at $20,000, FOX 13 and the Tampa Bay Times reported.

Gualtieri said he believes the elements are in place to justify the charges, and that historical audits of the agency’s systems, which go back to 2022, are now complete. Whether the State Attorney agrees is the open question after the Gwynne dismissal. The Scott case also shows why our attorneys request the audit log and the reason entered for each query in any case that starts with a Flock “hit.” The log shows who searched, when, and why they said they did, and the Pinellas cases show that the stated reason can be false.

What Florida Crimes Apply When an Officer Misuses a License Plate Reader?

Two felony statutes carry most Florida prosecutions, and a third law decides the officer’s pension. Our attorneys analyze all three at the outset of any officer database case.

Why “exceeds authorization” is the heart of the case

Florida courts have debated this question for 30 years. In Gallagher v. State, 618 So. 2d 757 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993), a Sunrise Police Department aide ran her boyfriend through NCIC and FCIC out of curiosity. The Fourth District affirmed her conviction without an opinion, while Chief Judge Glickstein dissented, arguing that the statute punished unauthorized access, not improper use. The current statute was written to close that gap, although the Gwynne dismissal shows that prosecutors do not all read it that way. The 2018 version reached only access “without authorization,” and the version in force after the 2019 amendment also reaches access where “the manner of use exceeds authorization.”

Even so, section 815.06(7)(b) exempts a person acting “within the scope of his or her lawful employment.” Purpose is therefore the battleground. Prosecutors prove it with case numbers, reason codes, and timing, such as Gwynne’s 207 off-duty searches. Our Tampa internet crimes attorney page explains how we defend computer crimes charges.

Why official misconduct is harder to prove

Official misconduct requires two things beyond a bad search. The state must prove the officer falsified, concealed, or altered an official record, and the statute limits “official record” to public records. The state must also prove the officer acted to obtain a “benefit,” which section 838.014 defines as any gain or advantage, including anything the person regards as one.

The benefit element is where these cases are won and lost. In Jones v. State, No. 6D2023-0311 (Fla. 6th DCA June 23, 2023), a Polk County detective falsified investigative reports for two years. The Sixth District ordered acquittal on all 18 official misconduct counts because the state never proved he falsified the reports to obtain a benefit. Trial courts in Pinellas and Hillsborough follow Jones unless the Second District rules otherwise.

The pension consequence few people discuss

A conviction for a chapter 838 felony forfeits a public employee’s retirement benefits under section 112.3173, and a no contest plea counts as a conviction. The exact count matters. In Houston v. City of Tampa Firefighters & Police Officers’ Pension Fund Board of Trustees, 303 So. 3d 233 (Fla. 2d DCA 2020), a Tampa police sergeant accused of using the DAVID driver’s license database in a tax refund scheme pleaded guilty only to receiving stolen federal property. The Second District reversed the forfeiture of her pension and ordered it restored with interest, because her plea did not establish a specified offense. For an officer, what the plea says matters as much as whether there is one.

How Common Is Flock and ALPR Misuse by Police?

Documented cases now number in the dozens. In August 2026, The Washington Post reported that at least 46 officers nationwide had been accused of using license plate cameras for unauthorized tracking, according to Al Jazeera. Our firm tracks these prosecutions because the sentences are rising.

In 2023, the Kansas lieutenant received probation. By September 30, 2026, the Texas officer was headed to prison for five years.

Who Catches Officers Who Misuse License Plate Readers?

Outsiders catch most of them. Where the public record shows how a case began, the first alarm usually came from a victim, a victim’s friend, or a reporter reading public search logs. Agencies then acted quickly. Our attorneys look first at how a case surfaced, because it shapes both the proof and the defense.

Sources: Creative Loafing Tampa, Dexerto, The Washington Post, CNN, and Tech Times.

The Washington Post put it bluntly in an August 2026 headline: “Police departments weren’t looking for officers abusing Flock. We did it for them.” Its review of search logs led to discipline in two departments.

Where the thin blue line holds, and where it breaks

Detection is the weak point. Once misuse is exposed, agencies have acted fast. Pinellas arrested its own deputies, Lufkin called in the Texas Rangers, and Haines City arrested its officer within a day of learning of the searches. In the cases reviewed here, no agency shielded an officer once the facts were public. Four gaps explain why detection lags:

1. No audit requirement. Florida’s ALPR statutes, section 316.0777 and section 316.0778, govern placement, retention, and public records. Neither requires an agency to review who searched what.
2. Empty reason codes. “Investigation” was the most common reason Wisconsin agencies entered for Flock searches in early 2025, the Wisconsin Examiner found.
3. Shared logins. Pinellas runs searches through a shared “service account” across three vendors, so its public log cannot show which deputy searched, TCPalm reported.
4. Shrinking outside visibility. Flock now redacts officer names and plates from public audit logs, which narrows the channel that has caught the most officers.

Who decides the charges

The arresting agency does not make the final charging decision in Florida. The State Attorney for the Sixth Judicial Circuit, which covers Pinellas and Pasco, decides whether and how to charge each deputy, and its first two decisions show the gap between an arrest and a prosecution: Stanton’s charges were changed, and Gwynne’s were dropped. In Hillsborough, that decision belongs to the Thirteenth Circuit State Attorney. For an accused officer, the investigation’s path shapes the defense. A shared service account forces the state to prove who ran each search, while an officer’s own admission to a supervisor, as in the Gwynne and Haines City cases, leaves far less room.

What Did Governor DeSantis Order on License Plate Readers?

Governor Ron DeSantis directed the Florida Department of Transportation to revoke permits for ALPRs on state highway rights-of-way, effective September 30, 2026. The FDOT memorandum cited reports of misuse and data privacy concerns. DeSantis said, “I don’t want to have this become a surveillance state,” Axios reported.

Section 316.0777 supplies the authority: ALPRs sit on state highway rights-of-way only at FDOT’s discretion, and must come down within 30 days of notice. The order does not reach city streets, county roads, or private property. Our attorneys tell Tampa Bay drivers the same thing: the cameras moved off state roads, and local networks remain.

Sources: Axios Tampa Bay and ABC Action News.

Where Do Florida Candidates Stand on Flock Cameras?

Neither major-party nominee for governor has promised a full ban, but both support the DeSantis order. Democrat David Jolly wants a judicial warrant before police use the data, and Republican Byron Donalds wants harsher penalties for officers who abuse it, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Donalds called for a pause on Flock contracts in July. Jolly also wants a special legislative session and a ban on use for immigration enforcement.

Locally, former Governor Charlie Crist proposes a moratorium on expanding St. Petersburg’s Flock system, while Mayor Ken Welch defends it, ahead of their November 3 runoff, per Bay News 9. Nationally, more than 150 local governments have deactivated or canceled ALPR contracts, according to the advocacy group DeFlock, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott blocked state agencies from spending on Flock’s networks, Claims Journal reported. Any rewrite the Legislature passes next session will change what ALPR evidence looks like in Tampa Bay courtrooms, and our firm will update this guide when it does.

What Is Law Enforcement’s Case for Keeping License Plate Readers?

Sheriffs and chiefs argue the cameras solve violent crimes and find missing people, and that the answer to misuse is punishment. “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” Gualtieri said on September 30, crediting the cameras with solving homicides and rapes. According to the Tampa Police Department, its ALPR system has assisted in 622 arrests, 485 vehicle recoveries, 68 firearm recoveries, and 14 missing-person cases since 2021, per Florida Politics.

The strongest evidence involves abducted children. In 2024, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children partnered with Flock to push AMBER Alert vehicles into the camera network. In August 2026, Lake City police used Flock to find a woman’s SUV that her boyfriend allegedly drove off with while her two children were inside, WFLA reported.

Controlled research is more modest on deterrence. In a randomized experiment across 30 crime hot spots in Northern Virginia, George Mason University researchers found no statistically significant drop in crime from license plate reader patrols during a 30-day follow-up (Lum et al., Journal of Experimental Criminology, 2011), as summarized by the Justice Department’s CrimeSolutions program. That study tested patrols, not investigations. Both claims can hold: the cameras may prevent little crime, yet still find a specific car carrying a specific child. Our attorneys see the same tension in court, where an ALPR hit can be strong evidence of location and weak evidence of anything else.

Does the Fourth Amendment Limit Police Searches of Flock Data?

The law is unsettled, and 2026 moved it toward privacy. In Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018), the FBI obtained months of a robbery suspect’s cell-site location records without a warrant, and the Supreme Court held that acquiring them was a search. In Chatrie v. United States, 146 S. Ct. 2193 (2026), police used a geofence warrant to obtain Google location data near a Virginia bank robbery. By a 6-3 vote, the Court held that obtaining location history this way is a search, even for a short period. Justice Kagan wrote for five justices, and Justice Gorsuch concurred in the judgment, as the Congressional Research Service explains. Chatrie never mentions license plate readers, but it repeats Carpenter’s point that society has not expected police to “secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual’s car.”

The Tampa license plate reader ruling

In United States v. Floyd, No. 8:23-cr-00305 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 21, 2025), detectives tied a robbery suspect’s Mazda to a string of Tampa Bay store robberies through Vigilant hits and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office “Eye on Crime” ALPR system. U.S. District Judge Tom Barber denied suppression, holding that the readers captured discrete snapshots on public roads and that querying the databases was not a search. Floyd predates Chatrie, so our attorneys treat the question as open again for any client whose case rests on a long trail of ALPR hits.

Elsewhere, Schmidt v. City of Norfolk, No. 2:24-cv-621 (E.D. Va. Jan. 27, 2026), upheld Norfolk, Virginia’s network of about 176 Flock cameras. The appeal, No. 26-1227, is tentatively set for Fourth Circuit argument in December 2026. Losing a motion to suppress does not end the issue. At trial, the defense can still challenge whether the camera read the plate correctly and whether the alert was current.

What Should You Do If You Think an Officer Tracked You?

Act within days, write everything down, and demand that the agency preserve its audit logs. Our attorneys take these steps for clients who believe they were tracked:

1. Document the red flags. Write down dates, places, and anything an officer knew about you without a reason to know it. In the Stanton case, the claimed “ALPR hit” was the tell.
2. Request your own ALPR data. Section 316.0777(4)(b) allows an agency to release plate data to the person the plate is registered to, unless it is active criminal intelligence or investigative information.
3. File an internal affairs complaint in writing. Ask the agency to preserve the audit log for your plate, name, and driver’s license number.
4. Ask about protective options. A stalking injunction or a referral to an outside agency, such as FDLE, may fit when the officer’s own department is slow to act.

If you are an officer under investigation

Say nothing about your searches until you have counsel. Under Fla. Stat. 112.532(1)(i), an officer has the right to counsel during an interrogation about fitness for duty. In Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493 (1967), the Supreme Court held that statements compelled under threat of job loss cannot be used in a criminal prosecution. Voluntary statements, texts, and audit logs remain fair game. See our law enforcement officer representation articles.

Why Does Timing Matter in a License Plate Reader Case?

Images disappear fast. In August 2026, Flock cut its recommended default retention from 30 days to 7, and Florida caps retention under the schedule set by section 316.0778. A preservation letter sent in the first week can decide a case, whether our firm represents the person tracked or the officer accused. The same is true of messages and phone records, as we explain in our guide to social media evidence in Tampa criminal cases.

Frequently Asked Questions About Flock Camera Misuse

Is it a crime for a Florida officer to look up someone’s license plate for personal reasons?

Yes. Using a police database for a reason outside the job can violate section 815.06, which punishes access that exceeds authorization as a third-degree felony. A false reason code can add official misconduct under section 838.022. In our experience, the audit log is the most important evidence on either side.

Did the Pinellas deputy use Flock cameras to track the 17-year-old girl?

No, according to Sheriff Gualtieri. Stanton allegedly used FCIC, driver’s license, and agency records systems, then falsely told the girl he had received a license plate reader alert. The other deputy, Karl Gwynne, is accused of about 300 ALPR searches on a different woman.

Why were charges dropped against the Pinellas deputy who ran 381 license plate searches?

Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bruce Bartlett filed a no information on October 29, 2026, writing that current Florida statutes do not address the conduct reported against former deputy Karl Gwynne. Sheriff Gualtieri described it as a disagreement over the statute’s elements, and a no information does not prevent refiling. Our attorneys at The Brancato Law Firm follow these charging decisions closely, and an officer under investigation should consider representation before charges are filed.

Do police departments audit officers’ Flock searches?

Rarely on a routine basis, based on the public record. Florida law does not require ALPR audits, and in many documented cases a victim or reporter first exposed the misuse. Our attorneys request the full audit log in every case where license plate reader searches are at issue.

Can I find out whether police searched my license plate?

Possibly. Section 316.0777 permits an agency to disclose ALPR data about a plate registered to you, unless it is part of an active criminal investigation. Because retention is short, The Brancato Law Firm recommends a written request and a preservation demand as soon as you suspect misuse.

Are Flock cameras still operating in Tampa and Hillsborough County?

Yes. The Tampa Police Department and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office removed cameras from state rights-of-way by September 30, 2026, but both still operate license plate readers on city and county roads. Pasco County is the local exception, having ended its Flock contract.

Can an officer lose a pension over a Flock misuse conviction?

Yes, if the conviction is for a “specified offense” such as official misconduct. Under section 112.3173, a conviction or no contest plea to a chapter 838 felony forfeits public retirement benefits except the officer’s contributions. Our attorneys weigh this in every plea discussion in an officer’s case.

What should I do if I am an officer accused of misusing Flock or FCIC?

Call a lawyer before you answer questions about your searches. Florida’s Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights gives you the right to counsel during an interrogation, and the criminal case often moves on a separate track from internal affairs. The Brancato Law Firm represents officers in both proceedings at (813) 727-7159.

For more about our defense strategies, visit our Tampa Internet Crimes Attorney page.

If an officer tracked you, or you are an officer facing a database misuse investigation, call the attorneys of The Brancato Law Firm, P.A., founded by Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Rocky Brancato, at (813) 727-7159. ALPR images may be deleted in as little as 7 days, so contact us before the evidence is gone. Our firm has Spanish-speaking staff, and attorney Jean-Luc Adrien speaks Spanish, Haitian Creole, and French. Read our guide for Spanish-speaking and Haitian Creole-speaking clients.

The Brancato Law Firm, P.A.
620 E. Twiggs Street, Suite 205, Tampa, FL 33602
(813) 727-7159
Serving Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties

The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. is a Tampa-based criminal defense practice. We are not affiliated with any other Brancato-named law firms.