Florida\u2019s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) police are performing dozens of license plate lookups on Flock cameras for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to public records that show details of the searches.The practice highlights how ICE, which does not have a contract with Flock, continues to get access to Flock\u2019s AI-powered license plate scanning cameras through local and state police, and often in ways that are unusual, unexpected, and difficult for the public to track or hold the agency accountable for. In this case, ICE has gained access to Flock data through a law enforcement agency that is nominally supposed to be focused on conservation, protecting endangered species, and investigating boating and maritime issues. 404 Media initially reported on how ICE was getting side-door access to Flock data via local police in May 2025.That reporting led to a series of reforms and safeguards that are supposed to make it easier for law enforcement agencies that use Flock to opt out of having their surveillance camera data passed to federal agencies; a blog post by Flock called \u201cDoes Flock Share Data With ICE?\u201d now states plainly \u201cNo. Flock does not work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or any other sub-agency of the Department of Homeland Security.\u201d But in practice, the public records show that as of the end of January (the most recent data available) thousands of agencies around the country were sharing their camera data with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission police, which was then regularly performing lookups for ICE.Flock cameras continually scan the license plate, brand, and color of every vehicle that drives by. Law enforcement can then search the Flock system to see where else a vehicle has travelled. Crucially, Flock maintains a national lookup tool where agencies in one state can search data generated by cameras in another, even if those cameras are on the other side of the country. Law enforcement typically do this without a warrant.A January Flock network audit for Ball State University, a public university in Indiana that has a contract with Flock, shows that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission police performed 38 different Flock searches for reasons that were listed as \u201cimmigration.\u201d\u00a0Flock network audits are spreadsheets that have a separate entry for each time a police department\u2019s Flock data is queried by another agency. Each entry contains information about how many different networks and cameras were searched, the time of the search, and the stated \u201creason\u201d for the search. The searches performed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission had reasons that ranged from \u201cImmigration (civil\/administrative) – I.C.E.\u201d to \u201cImmigration (criminal) – General Criminal Investigation\u201d to \u201cImmigration (criminal) – I.C.E.\u201d The network audit indicated that more than 5,000 different Flock networks were searched in each case, indicating that, as of January, thousands of towns and cities were still sharing data with agencies that ultimately work with ICE despite new safeguards put in place by Flock.\u201cThis highlights when you do mass surveillance, you really can\u2019t control the data,\u201d Jay Stanley, a senior analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union\u2019s (ACLU) Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told 404 Media. \u201cI doubt there were many cities that were debating the Florida Fish and Wildlife Services doing searches for ICE when they were talking about whether they should get Flock. It shows these searches can come from really any direction.\u201dThe records in question were obtained from Ball State University by the journalist David Covucci, who covers college sports for his website FOIABall. Covucci shared the documents with 404 Media. The documents showed that, beyond the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission police, the Texas Department of Public Safety, Grant County Indiana Sheriff’s Office, Lake County Indiana police, Sarasota County Florida police, Brevard County Florida Sheriff’s Office, Nebraska State Patrol, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Fort Pierce Florida Police Department, and Mississippi Department of Public Safety had all done immigration-related Flock searches in January. This means that all of these agencies ultimately searched Flock cameras on Ball State\u2019s campus (and thousands of others across the country) for immigration-related purposes.Police with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are able to do these lookups for ICE because in August, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis enrolled nearly 800 of its officers in 287(g), a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program that gives state and local police certain immigration enforcement powers. DeSantis has essentially turned many state police into an extension of ICE: \u201cFlorida is setting the example for states in combating illegal immigration and working with the Trump Administration to restore the rule of law,\u201d DeSantis said in a press release announcing the move. \u201cBy allowing our state agents and law enforcement officers to be trained and approved by ICE, Florida will now have more enforcement personnel deputized to assist federal partners. That means deportations can be carried out more efficiently, making our communities safer as illegal aliens are removed.\u201dThe ACLU published a report in February about how the expansion of the 287(g) program has vastly increased the Trump administration\u2019s deportation force. \u201cWhile in recent months the nation\u2019s attention has rightly focused on the violence and abuse perpetrated by ICE and Border Patrol agents in places like Minneapolis, in Florida and around the country, communities are experiencing another kind of terror: Their own law enforcement agencies, working hand in glove with the Trump administration, are the perpetrators of blatant racial profiling, harassment, and even violence,\u201d the report says.\u00a0The report specifically notes that \u201cFlorida appears to have devoted more state and local law enforcement resources to immigration enforcement than any other state, resulting in numerous cases of harassment and profiling of U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike, a climate of extreme fear in communities, and reports of serious civil rights violations.\u201dThe ACLU\u2019s Stanley said that the expansion of 287(g) has made a lot of the debates that communities are having about federal access to Flock data feel outdated, because they may fail to grapple with the fact that local police around the country are now doing work on behalf of federal authorities. \u201cA lot of the focus in communities and elsewhere where Flock is controversial have focused on this question of \u2018Will the feds be able to access this data?,\u2019\u201d Stanley said. \u201cThis is a reminder that the sharp expansion of 287(g) has made that almost moot because a lot of local authorities are working so closely with ICE.\u201dFlock has in recent months attempted to distance itself from ICE, in part with the \u201cDoes Flock Share Data With ICE?\u201d blog post and with numerous media appearances and LinkedIn posts by its executives. Flock has repeatedly leaned on the idea that its customers own and control their data, and that Flock has made numerous changes to comply with several states\u2019 laws that forbid the use of license plate reader data for immigration or abortion enforcement, or which ban the transfer of license plate camera data out of the state altogether.\u00a0\u201cAs we’ve shared with your organization many times, all our customers own their data and choose how to use it, provided it complies with local laws and statutes,\u201d a spokesperson for Flock told 404 Media. \u201cIn cities and states where cooperating with federal immigration is against the law, we block that from happening within the product itself. In states where cooperation is legal, customers and their local values determine how they choose to enforce the law.\u201dThe Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A spokesperson for Gov. DeSantis\u2019s office, however, told 404 Media that the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission continues to work with ICE. \u201cPlease note that it is NOT out of the ordinary for FWC to work alongside ICE as they have a 287 (g) agreement with them-as do all State of Florida law enforcement agencies,\u201d they said.404 Media, other reporters, and transparency advocates have been reporting on the use of Flock cameras primarily by obtaining network audits through public records requests. But the utility of those network audits is rapidly deteriorating; as we reported earlier this year, Flock has made changes to its network audits that makes each individual entry more vague, and authorities have warned police to be \u201cas vague as permissible\u201d about the reasons why they are using Flock. Many Flock search reasons simply say \u201cinvestigation\u201d or another blanket term, making it impossible to know why the system was really used. Because of this change, it may become harder to track which agencies are working with ICE, and how often it\u2019s happening.\u201cI think everybody using Flock knows you can get away with putting something like a generic descriptor that won\u2019t tip off communities to what\u2019s going on,\u201d Stanley said. \u201cThis window of visibility is closing, even this very limited flawed, manipulable window of visibility is closing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"