This article ^{(archive link)} from the Dallas Morning News is the best reporting we’ve been able to find on the abortion case that stirred even more discussion on the enormous power and potential for abuse provided by Flock’s national surveillance network.

The article includes statements from law enforcement that they were only concerned for the woman’s safety. However, even if that is true, it is a fact that Texas is one of several states that are now aggressively pursuing health care providers and women seeking out-of-state relief from draconian state abortion laws, and it is a fact that Flock provides local law enforcement agencies with an unprecedented ability to track the movements of individuals far outside of their jurisdiction.

Flock presents an obvious danger to many different groups of people, and this case is another example of many instances of abuse.

Flock’s PR team posted an official reply ^{(archive link)} to the reporting on this case, full of finger-pointing and disclaiming any responsibility for building a national surveillance system accessible to anyone in law enforcement with no oversight at all. They touted the successes of their system while ignoring its risks and numerous existing cases of abuse, and they advertised the “search reason” that their system requires. However, our own investigations have found that law enforcement users routinely use vague descriptions like “inv”, “investigation”, “search”, and even leave the field entirely blank. Flock’s response that they searched their network for any other similar cases of abuse and found none is, therefore, worthless. Flock has designed a system that has so little oversight built in that they cannot even effectively monitor it for abuse.

404Media originally broke this story ^{(archive link)} on May 29, 2025, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation followed up with additional reporting the next day ^{(archive link)}. Shortly after Flock’s PR response, the EFF published another excellent reply, pointing out many of the reasons that Flock’s architecture was designed to enable this kind of abuse ^{(archive link)}. All of these articles are worth reading for their coverage of not just this case but the broader problem of the abuse of Flock’s surveillance systems.