Sandy Springs operates about 400 Flock Safety license plate readers, and a new push from two U.S. senators could reshape how the city's surveillance network is governed.
U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, and U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican, sent a letter Monday, Sept. 21, to Attorney General Todd Blanche. They asked the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to issue federal guidelines for how state and local police use automatic license plate readers, known as ALPRs. The senators also demanded the DOJ disclose how much federal money has gone toward buying the systems.
The DOJ has until Wednesday, Oct. 21, to respond to six questions covering federal funding, oversight, training, data policies, misconduct reporting and auditing.
"Georgians want to be safe in their communities, yes … They want to safe from crime, but they also want to be safe from stalking and harassment. And they shouldn't have to choose one or the other," Warnock said at a virtual press conference Wednesday, Sept. 23, as first reported by GPB News.
The letter lands squarely on Sandy Springs. The city has about 400 Flock cameras that run around the clock, Sandy Springs Police Maj. Mike Lindstrom told the City Council in June. The city spent more than $400,000 on its Flock contracts in 2024, according to public records obtained by Appen Media.
Sandy Springs has already seen misuse firsthand. Officer Francis Michael Esposito resigned in August 2025 amid an internal affairs investigation that found he had searched the city's Flock system to help develop a private commercial data platform called Signal 8, Appen Media reported. The department classified his departure as a termination.
Statewide pattern
The problem extends well beyond Sandy Springs. The Senate letter states that at least 20 Georgia law enforcement officers have been arrested for abusing ALPR access. Nationwide, at least 50 officers have been charged with or accused of unauthorized searches, and at least 30 of those cases involved stalking current, former or prospective romantic partners.
In one case cited in the letter, a police chief searched a former partner's vehicle tags roughly 600 times over 13 months.
In Hall County, seven employees left the sheriff's office after an audit of Flock searches concluded Sept. 4. Four deputies resigned and three were fired. The audit reviewed 758 searches and flagged 85 as suspicious, according to 11Alive. Hall County Sheriff Gerald Couch then cut the number of authorized Flock users from 124 to 24.
Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based company behind the nation's largest ALPR network with more than 120,000 cameras across 49 states, announced new privacy measures in mid-August. Those include reducing its recommended data retention period from 30 days to seven and letting cities control which offense types outside agencies can search.
What comes next
State Sen. John Albers, a Roswell Republican who chairs the Georgia Senate Public Safety Committee, said in an Aug. 24 editorial statement that the arrests warrant "serious attention" and that law enforcement is working to address the issue, as Fulton Neighbor reported. Albers joined a task force formed by the Georgia Association of Sheriffs and the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police to explore whether new state legislation is needed.
Fulton Neighbor reported that neither the DOJ nor Flock Safety responded to requests for comment on the Senate letter. No Sandy Springs officials have publicly responded.
The DOJ's Oct. 21 response deadline is the next marker.
