- The LAPD will not renew its contract with automated license plate reader (ALPR) company Flock after an audit found improper investigations.
- An audit revealed that in a two-month period, 161 people were wrongly flagged as driving stolen vehicles due to inaccurate or outdated ALPR data.
- Innocent individuals have been subjected to high-risk police stops, including being tracked, pulled over, and even jailed, because of ALPR system errors.
- The LAPD’s ALPR cameras generated over 210.5 million license plate reads in two months, but most hot list hits resulted in no police action.
- Many false alerts occurred because license plates remained on hot lists after stolen vehicles were recovered, often due to delays by other jurisdictions.
- The OIG report recommends suspending new ALPR contracts, strengthening oversight, and conducting a broader reassessment of data practices.
- The LAPD recovered 337 stolen cars and made 74 arrests using ALPR data during the audit period, but the system's issues led to the contract expiration.