TL;DR: An investigation has revealed a growing number of police officers using license-plate reader systems to track women they knew personally, turning a tool sold for crime fighting into one that could also enable stalking and surveillance. The main tool being misused is Flock Safety, a network of roadside cameras that scan and catalog billions of license plates each month. The result is a searchable, time-stamped record of vehicle locations that officers can query without a warrant. Cameras feed plate data into a centralized system, where officers can search by plate number or, using newer "vehicle fingerprint" tools, by characteristics such as color or bumper stickers. Cameras mounted on utility poles or roadside fixtures continuously collect data, while access remains largely confined to law enforcement systems.