Sedgwick, Kansas, Police Chief Reportedly Used Flock Safety License-Plate Readers 228 Times to Track Ex-Girlfriend and Her New Boyfriend

From June to October 2023, Sedgwick, Kansas, Police Chief Lee Nygaard reportedly used Flock Safety license-plate readers 228 times to check the whereabouts of his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend, according to a Kansas certification order. The order said he also followed them in a police vehicle and ultimately admitted jealousy influenced his conduct. Nygaard resigned in October 2023 and later lost his police certification.

Risk classification

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

The incident involves an individual using an AI-enabled surveillance system for targeted harassment, stalking, and personal exploitation of specific victims.

Additional risk subdomains

• 2.2 AI system security vulnerabilities and attacks: The system's lack of robust access controls and automated anomaly detection allowed authorized users to easily bypass search justification requirements.

Causal factors

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

The stalking and unauthorized tracking were caused by the intentional decisions and actions of a human operator misusing the deployed system.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 2 High Risk

High Risk: The system is used in law enforcement applications, specifically for monitoring and tracking vehicle movements, which has significant implications for fundamental rights and public safety.

AI system and alleged parties

• AI system: Flock Safety license-plate readers (Flock Safety)
• AI purpose: License Plate Recognition; Camera Tracking
• Behaviour type: Tool
• Alleged developer: Surveillance technology developers, Flock Safety, Automated license plate reader (ALPR) developers
• Alleged deployer: Sedgwick Police Department (Kansas), Police departments in the United States, Lee Nygaard, Law enforcement
• Alleged harmed parties: Unnamed boyfriend of Lee Nygaard's former girlfriend, Privacy, Lee Nygaard's unnamed former girlfriend

Harm severity

Severity ratings are based on this scale.

Highest direct severity in any category: Minor. 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 Negligible
• 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 Negligible
• Differential treatment: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Civil rights: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Democracy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Privacy: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Psychological: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Epistemic: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible

Privacy

Reported: The report explicitly describes unauthorized tracking of vehicle locations using license plate readers.

Directly caused: The police chief violated the privacy of his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend by querying their location data 228 times.

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 2
• People reportedly harmed: 3
• People reportedly exposed: 3

Potential causes

Management

• Inadequate Oversight of Chief: City management failed to oversee the chief's daily operational tool usage.
• Lack of Vendor Oversight: Flock relied entirely on local agencies to self-police system usage.

Technology

• Weak Search Justification System: The software accepted generic, unverified search justifications like 'test'.
• Lack of Automated Abuse Alerts: The ALPR system did not automatically flag repeated searches for same plates.
• No Real-Time Validation: The technology lacked real-time validation of entered police case numbers.

Data Inputs

• Unverified Manual Search Terms: System accepted arbitrary search reason inputs without verifying case existence.

Human Factors

• Malicious Intent and Jealousy: The police chief abused his access privileges due to personal jealousy.
• Abuse of Positional Trust: The city placed high trust in the chief, allowing unmonitored system access.

Process and Methods

• Infeasible Manual Auditing: Police departments stated that auditing every individual search was impossible.
• Lack of Proactive Audit Procedures: No routine, proactive audits were conducted to catch unauthorized searches.
• Absence of Internal Usage Policies: The local department lacked strict policies preventing personal use of Flock.

Regulatory Environment

• Hidden Camera Locations: Legislative lobbying kept camera locations secret, reducing public oversight.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: High
• Reason for confidence: The report provides precise details, including the exact number of unauthorized searches (228 total, 164 for the ex-girlfriend, 64 for the boyfriend), the specific dates, the search terms used, and the official actions taken against the officer.

A local police chief in Kansas misused the Flock Safety license plate reader database to stalk his ex-girlfriend and her partner. While the incident represents a severe breach of trust and a violation of individual civil liberties, its national security impact is negligible to minor, as it was a localized, non-state personal dispute with no systemic threat to national infrastructure, sovereignty, or stability.

• Overall national security impact: Minor
• Scope: Single nation
• Primary target: United States
• Alleged perpetrator: Lee Nygaard

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. The specific threat has been resolved with the officer's resignation and decertification, representing an ongoing policy and auditing concern rather than an active national crisis.
• Autonomy: Human-controlled. The Flock Safety system acted purely as a tool queried by a human operator, who made all decisions regarding whom to track and when.
• Novelty: Established threat. Abuse of law enforcement databases and surveillance tools by individual officers for personal reasons is a well-documented, pre-existing issue.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. The incident involved local-level tracking and stalking of individuals. It did not target critical infrastructure, kinetic systems, or physical safety at a scale affecting national security.
• Information security: Negligible. This was a localized misuse of a law enforcement database for personal reasons, not a state-sponsored intelligence compromise, classified data theft, or systematic information operation.
• Sovereignty: Minor. While the incident involved an abuse of authority by a local government official (police chief), it does not threaten federal sovereignty, national electoral systems, or core constitutional processes.
• Economic security: Negligible. There was no threat to national economic stability, strategic industries, or technological competitive advantages in AI.
• Societal stability: Minor. The incident represents a serious violation of civil liberties and privacy for the specific victims, but it does not constitute mass surveillance or population-scale algorithmic oppression.