{"id":329345,"date":"2026-08-25T16:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T16:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/329345\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T16:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T16:12:13","slug":"new-york-police-agencies-are-searching-flock-data-to-aid-immigration-enforcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/329345\/","title":{"rendered":"New York police agencies are searching Flock data to aid immigration enforcement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police in New York state have repeatedly searched data<\/a> gathered by license plate readers operated by other law enforcement agencies, and in some cases obscured the reasons for those searches, according to a report<\/a> published Tuesday by two civil rights groups.<\/p>\n

The authors \u2014 one from the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, or STOP, a New York civil rights group that scrutinizes government surveillance technology, and the other from LatinoJustice PRLDEF, a New York civil rights group formerly known as the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund \u2014 found that state and local police in New York have searched a license plate database organized by the law enforcement technology firm Flock, on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Police listed their reasons for searches in internal logs as \u201cImmigration (civil\/administrative)\u201d for drivers not suspected of any crime.<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s authors reviewed data from Have I Been Flock\u2019d<\/a>, a website that publishes Flock search logs based on public records requests. The logs show that, as recently as July, police in at least two New York towns included \u201cICE\u201d in its searches of Flock\u2019s data, listing the reason for the search as either \u201cICE\u201d or \u201cWanted by ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n

These were only the searches that were plainly listed for immigration purposes. The authors also linked different searches for the same license plate, discovering a pattern: After federal agents conducted searches that were tagged for immigration enforcement, a New York state or local police officer searched for the same plate, only listing their search reason as \u201cinvestigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe top line is that our own police in New York state \u2014 local and state police \u2014 are making immigration-related searches, and beyond that,\u00a0they appear to be hiding these searches,\u201d Eleni Manis, a co-author of the report and a research director at STOP, said in an interview. \u201cWhat we saw was that as soon as an hour after an immigration-related search occurred, you\u2019d see another New York State law enforcement agency completing the same search, but\u00a0not labeling it immigration-related.\u201d<\/p>\n

The researchers found that on March 24, 2025, a search conducted at the New York State Fusion Center, an information-sharing hub used by federal, state and local law enforcement, included the reason \u201cSWB 25-03-01 DHS Agent.\u201d The researchers said that description indicated a search related to the southwest border and the date the search was conducted by a Department of Homeland Security employee. An hour later, a New York state police officer searched for same plate found in that search and listed their search reason as \u201cInvestigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s authors found that after a Border Patrol agent ran another plate, on June 1, 2025, a police officer from Lancaster, New York searched for the same plate later that day. The officer searched for the same plate again two days later, listing the reason as \u201cinv.\u201d A week later, an officer from the Cheektowaga, New York, Police Department searched the plate twice, with the reasons listed as \u201cWANTED\u201d and \u201cWanted by ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n

The findings offer a glimpse into how federal immigration enforcement is relying on cooperative local police departments to search license plate reader data, because ICE and CBP do not have direct access to Flock\u2019s data. But the researchers noted in their report that the cases they found may be just a fraction of such assistive searches.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m less interested in whether officers obscured their searches purposefully than in figuring out how often police in New York State are conducting searches on behalf of ICE \u2026\u00a0and we can\u2019t possibly know\u00a0because officers aren\u2019t required to document those searches because it\u2019s so easy to conceal the searches,\u201d Manis said.<\/p>\n

Manis said these searches are part of a larger pattern in which police officers are concealing their intentions with the Flock data, or concealing their searches for reasons beyond their police work. Across a number of states, including Georgia<\/a>,\u00a0Massachusetts<\/a>, North Carolina<\/a> and Wisconsin<\/a>, officers have reportedly used the technology to spy, stalk or harass romantic interests or exes, or for other purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen a Texas sheriff tracking an abortion seeker across state lines,\u201d Manis said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen officers across the country performing completely inappropriate searches of, you know, their ex\u2011partners. We\u2019ve seen law enforcement tracking protesters using license plate readers, and of course, we\u2019ve seen license plate readers being used to track undocumented immigrants. There is no federal or New York state law regulating the use of license plate readers, and, consequently,\u00a0all kinds of abuses are possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there is no federal law or New York state law, such as one in Virginia<\/a> that creates strict rules for how license plate reader data may be used by law enforcement, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo during the first Trump administration signed Executive Order 170<\/a>, prohibiting New York state agencies from assisting\u00a0federal immigration for the purpose of civil immigration enforcement, specifically through the use of equipment such as license plate readers.<\/p>\n

New York recently passed the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act<\/a>, as part of the state\u2019s 2026\u201327 budget. The law bars local law enforcement from entering into formal or informal agreements to assist with federal immigration enforcement, and requires existing 287(g) agreements \u2014 formal arrangements under federal law that allow ICE to deputize state and local officers to perform certain federal immigration enforcement functions \u2014 to end by Tuesday. The law does not explicitly address Flock searches, but the researchers argued that routine searches conducted at ICE\u2019s request \u2014 particularly searches for people not suspected of crimes \u2014 could constitute prohibited informal cooperation under the new law.<\/p>\n

In a recent interview<\/a> with Fox News, addressing backlash following the exposure of recently identified police abuses<\/a> of his company\u2019s license plate reader data and widespread criticism<\/a> of the company and its technology, Flock CEO Garrett Langley called for a \u201ccompromise\u201d between privacy and safety. Tom Bowman, policy counsel with the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology\u2019s Security & Surveillance Project wrote in an email that \u201cthe \u2018compromise\u2019 already exists. It\u2019s called a warrant.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report recommends that every law enforcement agency submit a log of its Flock searches to the state\u2019s attorney general, including information on who conducted each search, specific and detailed reasons for the search and an associated case number. The authors recommended a statewide policy that mandates a 48-hour retention policy for data collected from Flock license plate readers, which aligns with a recommendation from the American Civil Liberties Union, but is shorter than Flock\u2019s recently updated default retention schedule of seven days.<\/p>\n

The researchers also recommended limiting searches only to investigations involving felonies, stolen vehicles or missing persons cases, and prohibiting all law enforcement agencies in New York state from sharing data with ICE.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Yorkers shouldn\u2019t have to worry that driving to work, dropping their kids off at school, or simply going about their day could allow ICE to track where they are,\u201d Andrew Case, supervising counsel at LatinoJustice PRLDEF and co-author of the report, wrote in an email. \u201cWhile New York has made clear that local police should not be doing ICE\u2019s bidding, police can still use this technology to quietly share information with immigration enforcement. We need clear rules to make sure these tools are not used to track and target our immigrant communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Keely<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWritten by Keely Quinlan
\n\t\t\tKeely Quinlan reports on privacy and digital government for StateScoop. She was an investigative news reporter with Clarksville Now in Tennessee, where she resides, and her coverage included local crimes, courts, public education and public health. Her work has appeared in Teen Vogue, Stereogum and other outlets. She earned her bachelor\u2019s in journalism and master\u2019s in social and cultural analysis from New York University.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police in New York state have repeatedly searched data gathered by license plate readers operated by other law…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[29547,123806,123807,9,11,10,49,51,50,5065,13771],"class_list":["post-329345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-alpr","tag-automated-license-plate-readers","tag-flock-safety","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-state-local-news","tag-tech-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}