Florida Sheriff Uses Flock as Lie Detector, Asks County to Suppress Discussion
Hernando County's sheriff wants commissioners to help "minimize public discussion" of ALPR surveillance—and won't explain why in writing. Buried in his email is an admission he uses Flock data to dismiss witness testimony.
by H.C. van Pelt3 min read
Local news outlet R News recently reported that Hernando County,
Florida’s sheriff asked the county to suppress public discourse on ALPRs.[1] In an email, the
sheriff asked commissioners for their “help in minimizing the public discussion on this topic.”
Regarding why, he wrote, “I do not want to go into details in writing, but I can give specific examples
if you would like to set up a meeting.”
Although the obvious headline in that debacle is the attempt to suppress public discussion and the
outright rejection of transparency, another part of the sheriff’s email is perhaps even more
disturbing:
The technology has also allowed us to conduct truth verification on victim and witness statements,
allowing us to determine very quickly that one or more victim or witness was giving us false
information about what actually occurred. This keeps us from wasting valuable resources on chasing
false leads or, worse yet, investigating crimes that never occurred. —Sheriff Al Nienhuis in his
March, 2024 email to Hernando County Board of County Commissioners.
The sheriff suggests he is willing to dismiss cases and leads based on information from Flock.
Does that mean he will not investigate when a citizen reports a vehicle is involved in a crime, but
Flock didn’t detect it? Will he dismiss valid witness statements when a plate is misread? When a bug
in the Flock software doesn’t register it?
We have no idea how accurate Flock’s technology is exactly. That’s both “for obvious reasons” and
because it is being used without oversight or external audits. Governments will spend millions on
these contracts without asking the question. Still, all technology is fallible, and we know Flock
neither contractually guarantees any level of accuracy, nor permits validation of accuracy.
Flock is not contractually obligated to disclose information about inaccuracies, outages, or errors.
It is negatively incentivized to do so; its customers don’t like hearing results are inaccurate,
they prefer to assume they are.
The idea that a sheriff would use the system for “truth verification” and to direct resources should
be deeply disturbing to anyone who values the integrity of criminal investigations.
A search result proves nothing. A lack of search results proves nothing. It’s Flock making an
unverified, and unverifiable, claim on the basis of a compromised system.
Courts and police should treat it that way.
Hernando County is on Florida’s gulf coast, north of Tampa. ↩︎