Flock’s new AI tool lets police search people by movement

This article was published on August 19, 2026 A WIRED investigation says Flock Safety has built an AI tool, OS Investigate, that lets police search for people and vehicles by their movements, with no plate, name or crime needed. Flock says it is still in testing. Critics say it invites fishing for suspects. The surveillance firm Flock Safety has told the public for years that its cameras “cannot recognize, identify, or track individuals.” It has now built a tool that does both, according to a new investigation. The artificial-intelligence system lets police search for people and vehicles by their patterns of movement alone. It needs no licence plate, no name, and no crime to start from, WIRED reported on Tuesday. WIRED reporters Dhruv Mehrotra and Dell Cameron said they reconstructed the tool from files exposed through Flock’s own login pages. The code showed its prompts, its search forms and its intended workflows, they said. It did not reveal the model’s underlying instructions or the checks applied on Flock’s servers. Flock first called the system Nightshift, and now calls it OS Investigate. The tool can connect vehicle scans with police case files and arrest records, according