Yahoo News reports that a Flock Safety employee called 911 after a journalist filmed a camera installation on a public street in Milton, Georgia. The incident took place on August 19, 2026. The reporting it describes came from Atlanta News First.
What happened in Milton, Georgia?
Brendan Keefe, a journalist Yahoo News describes as Peabody and Emmy award-winning, was looking into the expansion of Flock's automated license plate reader network. He spotted a technician upgrading a camera near his home. Keefe parked a marked news van at a distance and filmed. The technician drove off at speed.
Keefe followed several cars back to document the next public installation. That's when, according to the report, the Flock employee called 911 and told the dispatcher they were being followed. Minutes later, three Milton Police Department cruisers pulled Keefe over. Yahoo News says the officer told him he was stopped because a vehicle reported that he had been following it.
- Date of the stop: August 19, 2026
- Place: Milton, Georgia
- Time detained: about 17 minutes
- Charges: none. Officers found he was not tailgating, chasing or breaking any laws.
Yahoo News does not say whether the employee was charged or disciplined. It also says no civil lawsuit has been filed over the stop, because the detention was brief and ended at the roadside.
Does Flock Safety keep plate data for seven days?
Flock announced new privacy and accountability guardrails in mid-August 2026. Among them: a 7-day retention period for automated license plate reader data, and mandatory multi-factor authentication for police logins.
Yahoo News reports that privacy advocates and journalists noticed a gap. The 7-day limit is only the default for new law enforcement customers. Older systems could keep data much longer. Yahoo News does not say how many agencies run older systems or how long those agencies keep data.
What changes for drivers?
Yahoo News does not describe any city ending its Flock contract or removing cameras, so nothing in it tells you a specific camera has been turned off. Yahoo News also does not say how many Flock cameras are in Milton.
The retention change is the only change Yahoo News describes that could affect what happens to plate data. Its reach depends on which agency runs a camera and when that agency became a Flock customer, and the report does not say either one. Plates are not confirmed to stop being scanned or recorded.
To see which cameras are mapped near you, check the camera map. For background on how these readers work, read how plate readers work.
Yahoo News also reports that Senator Josh Hawley has opened an inquiry into Flock's data collection practices. The report does not give a date for when that inquiry will finish.