Indiana Officer Arrested for Flock Searches of Wife [2026]

Update — October 26, 2026: Leaked audio of Flock's CEO telling police chiefs the backlash "isn't real" was published today; see what he said and what the record shows.

An Indiana police officer has been arrested on allegations that he used Flock cameras to track his wife and one of her previous acquaintances hundreds of times. According to The Guardian's report of October 23, 2026, Georgetown police officer Justin Craig is charged with official misconduct and two counts of fraud. The documents say he searched his wife's license plate more than 80 times and a "previous acquaintance" of hers nearly 250 times, with the searches running from January to July.

This is the latest in a run of Flock license plate reader misuse cases, and it matters beyond one department. Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) turn every car on a public road into a searchable record, and the only thing standing between that record and a stalker with a badge is an audit trail and a supervisor who reads it. If you drive, film in public, or publish dashcam and security video, this story shows where your plate data can end up and what you can still control.

What Is the Indiana Officer Accused of Doing With Flock?

He is accused of running personal searches on the Flock system, disguised as police work. The Guardian, citing documents reported by WLKY, says an internal review by Georgetown police found the searches were unrelated to any police investigation and that Craig "intentionally mislabeled those searches to make them appear justified." The search reasons typed into the system included traffic infractions, narcotics, assault and battery, theft and stolen vehicles.

That detail is the heart of the case. Flock asks officers to type a reason for each query, and departments point to that field as proof the system is accountable. Here the field was allegedly filled with plausible falsehoods. A reason box is only as honest as the person typing in it, which is why the charges include fraud and not only misconduct.

What are the charges and what does the defense say?

Craig is charged with official misconduct and two counts of fraud. His attorney, Matthew Lemme, released a statement to multiple outlets, quoted by The Guardian:

"Flock sells this same technology to cities, homeowners associations, and shopping malls. When public criticism of it came, the response was to put it on the shoulders of individual police officers. The conduct alleged does not violate any law or department policy."

The statement continues that if the public or police agencies think it should, "the answer is to write that law or policy," and that Craig "will file a motion to dismiss the charges against him." These are allegations and a defense position, not findings. Nothing in the reporting says a court has ruled.

How did investigators find out?

A reporter did. The documents show a Washington Post journalist called the Georgetown police chief with a tip, which started the investigation. That sequence deserves attention: the misuse ran for roughly seven months, and the trigger was an outside call rather than an internal audit alert. Departments that say their logs deter abuse should be asked how often anyone actually reviews them.

Is This an Isolated Flock Misuse Case?

No, it follows other recent cases. On September 25, 2026, CNN reported through Atlanta News First that four Indianapolis police officers and one former officer were charged with fraud and misconduct tied to the Flock camera system. One also faces a stalking charge and is accused of using the system to track women in order to interact with them. Another is accused of looking up the location of his ex-wife's car more than 950 times over six months. Four officers were suspended and the police chief recommended they be fired.

We covered a different failure mode last week, when a Savannah officer shared her Flock login with her ICE agent husband, who ran 983 searches. Indiana is the opposite pattern: not credential sharing, but a legitimate user abusing a legitimate login. Earlier reporting in our roundup of Flock vandalism and police data misuse shows how long this pattern has been building.

The Guardian notes there have been "multiple reports of police officers across several US states" accused of misusing the technology, including to stalk former romantic partners and to track down people seeking abortions.

Why Can One Officer Reconstruct Someone's Daily Life From Plate Reads?

Because the network is dense and the queries are cheap. The Guardian reports about 120,000 Flock cameras across the US conducting roughly 2 billion scans a month, serving more than 4,800 law enforcement agencies and nearly 1,000 businesses. Each scan captures a plate, a time and a location. Search a plate and you get a trail: the home, the workplace, the gym, the school pickup.

Eighty searches of one plate and 250 of another do not describe an investigation into a stolen car. They describe monitoring. Repeated queries on a single plate over months are exactly the pattern an audit should flag, because legitimate investigations tend to cluster around an incident and a case number.

Why does it matter that the searches were mislabeled?

Because the label is the control. In a typical ALPR policy, officers must enter a case number or a reason before searching, and supervisors rely on those reasons during audits. If a reason can be invented in a few keystrokes with no check against a real case record, the log records a story rather than a fact. This is the same weakness we saw in Savannah, where the audit log named the wrong person entirely.

What did Flock change in August?

According to The Guardian, in August Flock's CEO announced steps to curb police abuse by mandating that law enforcement agencies switch on features that help audit how individual officers use the system's tracking capabilities. The Indiana searches ran from January to July, so they predate that change. Whether mandatory audit features would have caught a seven-month pattern is the open question; the reporting does not say.

Can Police Legally Use Flock to Look Up a Spouse or Ex?

Using a work tool for personal tracking is not authorized by any Flock policy we have seen, but whether it is a crime depends on the statute and the facts. Prosecutors in Indiana chose official misconduct and fraud, which focus on abuse of public office and on false statements. The Indianapolis case adds a stalking charge for one officer, which fits conduct aimed at a person rather than at the system.

Craig's attorney argues the opposite: that the alleged conduct "does not violate any law or department policy." That argument will be tested in the motion to dismiss. It also exposes a real policy gap. Many agencies adopted ALPRs faster than they wrote rules for personal-use searches, retention, and discipline. We looked at one legal response in our post on the federal judge's Flock Fourth Amendment ruling, and at a push for a warrant requirement for ALPR data in San Jose.

What can cities do to prevent this?

Several safeguards recur in oversight proposals:

• Case-number validation. Require a real case or incident number that is checked against records, not free text.
• Automatic alerts. Flag repeated searches of the same plate, out-of-pattern hours, and searches by officers with no assigned case.
• Regular, independent audits. Have someone outside the chain of command sample the logs.
• Short retention. Data that no longer exists cannot be searched. Compare how some cities cancelled Flock contracts and ended plate data collection.
• Public transparency portals listing who has access and how many searches ran.
• Real discipline. Prosecutions like Indianapolis and Georgetown send a signal that mislabeling is fraud.

What Does This Mean for Drivers and Anyone Who Films in Public?

It means your plate is a persistent identifier you cannot opt out of on public roads, and you should be careful not to add to the pile. The cameras themselves are fixed and mostly beyond an individual's control. The footage you publish is not. A dashcam clip, a neighborhood vlog or a doorbell video posted online can show plates, faces and locations that anyone can search, scrape or match against other records.

Our primer on what Flock cameras are and their privacy risks and the guide to Flock cameras and your license plate privacy rights explain what the cameras capture and what rights you do and do not have.

How can BGBlur help with the footage you control?

BGBlur is a browser-based tool that blurs faces and license plates in video and photos, with motion tracking so a plate stays covered as the car moves. For dashcam clips, security footage or vlogs, you upload the file, let the AI detect plates and faces, review the result and export. Free accounts cover short clips with a 720p export; paid plans raise limits and remove the watermark.

Be honest about the limit. BGBlur does not touch Flock's cameras, police databases or the data already collected. It addresses one narrow thing: footage you publish should not become another searchable trail of your car, your family or the bystanders in your frame. For how plate and face redaction works for official video, see our guide to body cam and FOIA redaction, and for filming other people, our unauthorized filming privacy guide.

What Should You Do Today?

You can take small, concrete steps regardless of where you live.

1. Find out if your city or county uses Flock. Search the city council agenda archive or the department's transparency page for "Flock" or "license plate reader."
2. Request the policy and audit procedures. Ask your police department, by public records request where available, for the ALPR policy, retention period and how often logs are audited.
3. Ask for search-log records. Many states allow requests for audit logs. Look for repeated single-plate searches and vague reason fields.
4. Speak at a council meeting. Cities have cancelled or limited contracts after residents asked about retention, federal sharing and audits.
5. Blur plates and faces before you post. Run dashcam, doorbell and street footage through a blur tool, and check frames where the plate is small or angled.
6. If you fear being tracked by someone with access, talk to a domestic violence advocate or a lawyer. Plate-based stalking is documented in the reporting above.
7. Check what your own business captures. Shops and neighborhood associations with plate readers face the same misuse risk and should have written rules.

What Should Readers Take From the Georgetown Case?

The lesson is that ALPR safeguards fail quietly. The Guardian's account has the elements that keep recurring: an authorized login, a reason field that anyone can fill with a lie, months of repeated searches, and discovery by a journalist's phone call rather than by an audit. Prosecutors are now treating this as fraud and misconduct, and Flock has said it will force audit features on, but the Indiana searches show how long abuse can run before either matters.

For readers, the practical takeaway is two-sided. Push for accountability where the cameras are installed: retention limits, real case validation, independent audits and public logs. And tighten what you control, because every unblurred plate in a public video is one more data point that someone can search. If you publish footage of the road, your street or your neighborhood, blur faces and license plates with BGBlur before it goes live. It takes a few minutes in the browser, and it removes you and your neighbors from the footage you share. This is a developing story: the motion to dismiss, any trial dates and Flock's response could change the picture, and we will update this post as facts are confirmed.