A Single Flock Camera Reading Jailed an Innocent Woman for 13 Days
One Piece of Flock Camera Data Put This Innocent Woman in Jail for 13 Days
Lindsey Isaacs, 23, was arrested in Palm Beach, Florida, after a Flock license plate camera placed her black Dodge Durango near a fatal crash that killed three people. Despite witness reports of a maroon vehicle and no damage to her car, she was charged with three counts of vehicular homicide and held for 13 days, including 86 hours in solitary confinement. The charges were dropped in May 2026 after her attorney showed the judge photos of her undamaged car. She is now suing and testified before Congress.
I was facing the possibility of spending the rest of my life in prison for a crash that I knew I had not been involved in. I did not know if I would ever get out of jail. At my lowest point, I didn’t want to be alive.
- freddealmeida
Flock did not put the woman in jail. The police and DA put her in Jail. This is not a failure of the technology (do they have confidence levels?). This is a failure of how police are outsourcing their reasoning and decision making to an AI camera service that seems to fail at the tail.
- Cider9986
There was a senate hearing a few days ago where this woman testified. Also Benn Jordan and Chad Marlow from the EFF were htere. I was happy hearing them put into words the problems on the national stage.
- nomilk
Had the 'evidence' been a random dashcam rather than Flock cam, this wouldn't even be a story beyond severe police incompetence.
Flock didn't fail to inspect the car for damage and not find any, flock didn't take 13 days to conduct a cursory review of evidence, flock didn't fail to request cell tower triangulation data and rule out her being in the location of the accident...
I get that people feel their privacy's invaded by being filmed, but this story doesn't appear to have any more to do with Flock than what the officers had for breakfast or the brand of air freshener she had in her car at the time.
- teravor
the problem here appears to be that police officers are generally of average or below average intelligence. combined with the fact that they face no consequences for incompetence, you have the perfect mixture for nonsense like this happening.
I expect the solution they will settle on is to form a department for interacting with technology like this, who understand its outputs are not edicts.
you can't really expect any meaningful police reforms (such as liability and insurance) because anyone who is in any position to enact them is perfectly fine with dumb muscle that holds a monopoly on violence and is deferential to them. in fact the public disliking the police is an ideal outcome for those decision makers as it gives them more leverage over the police.
- delichon
> Regardless, the true takeaway of Isaacs’ experience is that ALPR technology, whether it’s from Flock or any of the other competitors in this space providing the same functionality (Axon, etc), is dangerous not only because it is so easily abused by police (or even by hackers) to invade the privacy and liberty of citizens, but also because it enables a lazy police department to outsource basic critical thinking to machines and then take action based on a single data point to ruin a person’s life.
The accusation that some machine made any decision here goes beyond the reporting in the article. It seems concocted to raise AI alarm. All we have is that it supplied accurate data that police then abused. That isn't in the vicinity of "outsource[d] basic critical thinking to machines".
I want such general government surveillance banned, but the machines in this story had no more volition than a breathalyzer.
- jasonkhanlar
> "Police didn't care that Lindsey Isaacs' car was the wrong color, and wasn't damaged. They still arrested her because of Flock data."
Cue 20 minute 2020 short film Please Hold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Please_Hold_(2020_film)
- angry_octet
The key thing she ought to have done was not answer the door, or given any sign she was there. She should have rung an experienced criminal attorney immediately, and moved to an undisclosed location that wasn't a hotel, with a new cell phone, and let her lawyer negotiate with the police to discover what their laziness has led them to believe.
- Xmd5a
> Jezebel
Well the next step obviously is to get in touch with the lodge these police officers belong to, talk to the grandmaster and convince him to organize a conciliation night with you as a guest. When you leave, whisper in the ear of the officer in charge of your case "I'm hungry, and I only use pressure cookers. If you behave I'll invite you to the diner".