Kechi, Kansas Police Lieutenant Victor Heiar Used Flock Safety License-Plate Reader System to Monitor Estranged Wife

Kechi, Kansas police lieutenant Victor Heiar used Wichita police's Flock Safety license-plate reader system to search his estranged wife's plate and review her movements over the prior month. An arrest affidavit said Heiar acknowledged knowing the use was improper; his wife said she felt violated and unsafe. He later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor stalking and computer crime and received 18 months' probation.

Risk classification

• Primary risk domain: 4 Malicious actors
• Primary risk subdomain: 4.3 Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation

The incident involves rogue law enforcement officers using the AI surveillance system to target, stalk, and manipulate specific victims for personal reasons and control, which aligns with targeted manipulation under boundary rule B1.

Additional risk subdomains

• 2.2 AI system security vulnerabilities and attacks: The system lacked robust access controls, mandatory case-number validation, and proactive auditing, leaving it vulnerable to unauthorized insider manipulation and data abuse.
• 1.2 Exposure to toxic content: Victims were subjected to targeted harassment, stalking, and threatening communications facilitated by the real-time tracking capabilities of the system.

Causal factors

• Entity: Human
• Intent: Intentional
• Timing: Post-deployment

The risk and subsequent harms were caused by the intentional decisions of human law enforcement officers to misuse the deployed AI system for unauthorized personal surveillance.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 2 High Risk

High Risk: The system is a law enforcement application used for real-time and historical tracking of individuals, which has significant implications for safety, fundamental rights, and public interests.

AI system and alleged parties

• AI system: Flock Safety license-plate reader system (Flock Safety)
• AI purpose: License Plate Recognition; Smart Surveillance
• Behaviour type: Tool
• Alleged developer: Surveillance technology developers, Flock Safety, Automated license plate reader (ALPR) developers
• Alleged deployer: Wichita Police Department (Kansas), Victor Heiar, Stalkers, Law enforcement, Kechi Police Department (Kansas)
• Alleged harmed parties: Women and girls, Women, Victor Heiar's estranged wife, Privacy, Individuals whose license plate data were accessed for non-law-enforcement purposes

Harm severity

Highest direct severity in any category: Substantial. Severity is scored from Negligible to Catastrophic in each harm category, for harm the reports describe as caused directly or indirectly by the AI system.

• Physical: direct Negligible, indirect Substantial
• Infrastructure: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Property: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Financial: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Environmental: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Malicious content: direct Negligible, indirect Substantial
• Differential treatment: direct Negligible, indirect Minor
• Civil rights: direct Minor, indirect Minor
• Democracy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Privacy: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Psychological: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Epistemic: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible

Physical

Reported: The report describes threats of physical violence and confrontations, as well as the suicide of one perpetrator before trial.

Directly caused: N/A

Indirectly caused: One perpetrator, a former police chief in Georgia, died by suicide in his home in April before his trial for stalking and harassment could take place.

Inferred additional harm: Given the history of domestic violence and physical confrontations mentioned in the reports, such as an officer strangling and backhanding his wife, further physical harm to victims was highly likely but not explicitly quantified as a direct result of the AI tracking itself.

Malicious content

Reported: The report describes officers sending harassing and stalking text messages containing location details obtained from the AI system.

Directly caused: N/A

Indirectly caused: Officers sent threatening and manipulative text messages to victims, such as 'I didn't think you would slip up' and screenshots of license plate search results to prove they were tracking them.

Inferred additional harm: It is likely that other victims among the 50 identified cases received similar harassing or intimidating digital communications facilitated by the tracking data.

Differential treatment

Reported: The report explicitly notes that the vast majority of the surveillance targets identified were women, highlighting a gendered pattern of abuse.

Directly caused: N/A

Indirectly caused: The misuse of public safety systems disproportionately targeted women, leveraging state-funded surveillance infrastructure to enforce male partner control and domestic harassment.

Inferred additional harm: N/A

Civil rights

Reported: The report explicitly describes violations of civil rights and official oppression.

Directly caused: Officers violated the constitutional and civil rights of citizens by conducting warrantless, non-investigative, and highly intrusive tracking of their movements.

Indirectly caused: One officer pleaded guilty to official oppression in Pennsylvania after using a competitor's plate reader to track his wife.

Inferred additional harm: Widespread unauthorized tracking by police officers represents a systemic violation of the Fourth Amendment and civil liberties for hundreds of citizens whose data was searched without cause.

Privacy

Reported: The report explicitly describes severe privacy violations where personally identifiable vehicle location data was accessed without authorization.

Directly caused: Officers accessed private, real-time, and historical location data of victims' personal vehicles without their consent or a legal warrant.

Indirectly caused: N/A

Inferred additional harm: Given that Flock records 20 billion plate scans a month and many departments do not audit searches, it is highly likely that thousands of citizens have had their location privacy compromised by unauthorized police searches.

Psychological

Reported: The report explicitly describes severe psychological distress, fear, and anxiety experienced by multiple victims of the tracking.

Directly caused: Multiple women reported living in a 'constant state of fear and unease', feeling 'violated, and had no source of privacy, and unsafe', and being 'scared to leave' their houses due to the constant tracking.

Indirectly caused: N/A

Inferred additional harm: With at least 50 officers accused of similar tracking behaviors nationwide, it is highly likely that dozens of other unnamed victims suffered comparable psychological trauma, anxiety, and distress.

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 50
• People reportedly harmed: 50
• People reportedly exposed: 50

Potential causes

Management

• Prioritizing Growth Over Safety: Flock and police focused on rapid expansion rather than locking down security.
• Inconsistent Agency Policies: Management failed to enforce strict rules like mandatory judicial warrants.
• Failure to Act on Warnings: Some departments let officers keep system access even after abuse allegations.

Technology

• AI-Enabled Tracking and Search: Computer vision and machine-learning vehicle fingerprinting enabled tracking.
• Lack of Automated Alert Filters: No proactive system alerts existed to flag suspicious, repetitive queries.

Data Inputs

• Indiscriminate Mass Plate Scans: System continuously records all passing license plates into a searchable database.
• Optional Search Justification: System allowed vague one-word entries instead of mandatory case numbers.

Human Factors

• Abuse of Power by Officers: Law enforcement officers used system access for personal stalking and harassment.
• Victim Retribution Fears: Victims hesitated to report because abusers possessed guns and badges.

Process and Methods

• Inadequate Audit Log Reviews: Police departments failed to conduct routine or thorough audits of search logs.
• Unrestricted Data Sharing: Sharing database access across agencies with no control over external usage.

Regulatory Environment

• Lack of Federal Privacy Laws: Absence of national standards left rules to individual police agencies.
• Secret Camera Locations: State laws shielded camera locations and logs from public record requests.
• No Standalone Misuse Crime: Some states lacked specific laws to criminally prosecute database misuse.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: High
• Reason for confidence: The reports provide extensive, detailed, and consistent factual accounts of multiple specific incidents of system misuse across different states, backed by court records, police affidavits, and direct quotes from victims, police officials, and the AI developer's executive.
• Ambiguities identified: None that significantly affect the classification of the primary safety risks and harms.
• Alternative interpretations: None; the facts clearly point to unauthorized personal surveillance and stalking by law enforcement officers using the AI tool.

Dozens of US law enforcement officers abused the Flock Safety AI license-plate tracking system to illegally stalk and harass women. While not a threat to national sovereignty or physical infrastructure, the widespread insider misuse of mass AI surveillance tools by state actors represents a substantial threat to civil liberties, privacy, and public trust in government institutions.

• Overall national security impact: Substantial
• Response level: Substantial
• Scope: Single nation
• Primary target: United States
• Alleged perpetrator: Rogue domestic law enforcement officers

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. Represents an ongoing domestic policy and oversight challenge rather than an active international crisis requiring immediate military or federal intelligence response.
• Autonomy: Human-controlled. The AI license-plate reader system operates as a tool; human officers initiated and executed the unauthorized searches and tracking.
• Novelty: Evolved capability. An advancement of classic police database abuse (like running plates of ex-partners) scaled up by modern AI-enabled mass surveillance networks.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. No threat to physical systems, critical infrastructure, or autonomous weapons deployment indicated in the incident reports.
• Information security: Minor. Unauthorized access to law enforcement databases containing vehicle location tracking data, but limited to domestic personal surveillance rather than state-sponsored intelligence compromise.
• Sovereignty: Minor. Misuse of authority by local law enforcement officers, representing a localized breakdown of internal controls and official oppression, but not threatening national sovereignty.
• Economic security: Negligible. No impact on strategic industries, financial systems, or national technological competitive advantage.
• Societal stability: Substantial. Systemic civil rights violations and unauthorized surveillance of citizens by state actors, which directly undermines public trust in law enforcement and democratic protections.