--- title: "Police Investigator Accused of Making Over 4,000 Illegal Flock Camera Searches" description: "An employee for the Albany County Sheriff's Office was caught conducting over 4,000 unauthorized queries on five people." date: "2026-09-13" modified: "2026-09-13" authors: - name: "Joe Wilkins" job_title: "Correspondent" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jwilkins.md" url: "https://futurism.com/future-society/police-investigator-flock-alpr-abuse-4000-illegal-searches" categories: - "Future Society" - "Privacy" --- # Police Investigator Accused of Making Over 4,000 Illegal Flock Camera Searches ![A photo illustration of a woman involved in a Flock scandal and a Flock camera.]() *Albany County Sheriff's Office / Shutterstock / Futurism* In case you thought the [extreme backlash]() against automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) was excessive, a veteran police investigator was just arrested after conducting over 4,000 unauthorized searches using the software provided by Flock Safety. According [to New York's *NEWS10*](), Albany County Sheriff's Office senior investigator Laurie Moore was arrested on Wednesday after conducting thousands of allegedly illegal searches on five different subjects. One of the victims of Moore's alleged ALPR abuse was reportedly her ex-girlfriend, whose license plate was reportedly queried in the system 3,000 separate times. Four additional vehicle plates were also searched hundreds of times each, bringing the grand total of unauthorized queries to over 4,000 across the last two years. After being suspended from the police agency, Moore was charged with official misconduct and second-degree falsifying business records, both misdemeanors. Another unnamed employee of the Sheriff's office was also placed on administrative leave, *NEWS10* reported, though their fate is pending an internal investigation. "She was an outstanding investigator, one of my absolute best employees," Sheriff Craig Apple told local press. "That's why it literally breaks my heart." Following Moore's arrest, the agency said it revoked access to the Flock software for non-supervisory staff, and updated protocols to require an audit by Internal Affairs staff once every 30 days. It's just the latest in a deluge of cases involving police abuse of ALPR systems. Recently in Georgia, three officers and a staffer of the Savannah Police Department were arrested after an investigation uncovered [similar misconduct](), though details on the abuse haven't been disclosed. At the time of writing, the nonprofit Institute of Justice has [logged]() 227 cases of ALPR abuse across the US. **More on Flock:** *[People Taking Down Flock Towers Are Becoming Folk Heroes, With Communities Circling to Protect Them]()* ## Author At Futurism, I focus on the intersection of technology and power — examining the economics, history, and politics behind today’s dystopian headlines. As a writer, I’m interested in topics ranging from AI’s impact on labor to startups nobody asked for. My prior work includes bylines in Jacobin, Verso, and Blue Labyrinths. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Forbes, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Time, The Nation, Mother Jones, The Verge, and Wired. I grew up in Michigan, attending Central Michigan University as well as Ball State University, where I earned a master of music. I now live in Brooklyn with my girlfriend and our cat Ziti. On weekends, you can find me hunched over a cold pint arguing geopolitics with the other transplants. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()