A police officer in Goshen, Indiana, searched 6,474 automated license plate reader networks covering data from 82,413 cameras on May 7, 2025, and typed "idk" — shorthand for "I don't know" — as the justification. That discovery is one of thousands documented in a new analysis published this month by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which examined search logs from Flock Safety's license plate surveillance systems nationwide. The report shows officers routinely access vast location databases with absurd, nonsensical, or openly mocking explanations, treating what's supposed to be a tool for serious investigations like a joke.
The EFF's review of network audit logs uncovered officers from the Barberton Police Department in Ohio running multiple searches between March 2024 and May 2026 with "LOL" or "lol" listed as the reason. Harris County Sheriff's Office employees in Texas entered "LOL" or "lol" as case numbers for several searches between April and May 2026. Lake County Sheriff's Department staff in Indiana searched for "LMAO" in July 2025, while Richmond Police Department employees in California ran over multiple searches in November 2024 with the reason "Hehe." Beyond internet slang, officers from more than 30 agencies conducted over 6,300 searches using "TBD" — meaning "To Be Determined" — as their rationale, including the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Manteca Police Department in California, and Baton Rouge Police Department in Louisiana. The Priceville Police Department in Alabama alone ran 1,954 searches with "TBD" listed. Other entries included insults: the Belton Police Department in Missouri searched for "d*ckhead" between August and September 2024, while a Norton Police Department employee in Massachusetts searched for "Sexy" in December 2024. Corona Police Department staff in California ran searches between 2023 and 2025 for "weird" or "WEIRD KID." Perhaps most alarming, numerous officers appear to have simply mashed keyboard keys instead of providing any explanation, producing strings like "gyghkkghghjkghjk," "asdfga," and ";'lkjh."
When contacted by the EFF, police departments offered a range of responses. Richmond Police Department in California said officers involved with "Hehe" and "idk" searches were "counseled," while Corona Police Department noted that employees who searched for "WEIRD KID" no longer work for the city for unrelated reasons. The Columbus Police Department in Ohio cited its union contract, explaining its Inspector General can only investigate incidents from the last 90 days, giving the officer who searched for "idiot" in 2023 a pass. The Fishers Police Department in Indiana defended an officer who searched for "blah," saying he uses that term "when he has issues with the technology" and that "the technology is not moving fast enough for him" while solving criminal cases. The San Diego County Sheriff's Department said it verified that searches with "idk" in the reason field were tied to active investigations, though California law has required officers to document a purpose for accessing license plate data since 2015.
The report argues these entries expose how automated license plate surveillance operates without the constitutional safeguards applied to other location tracking. When police want to search cell phone location information, they must go before a judge, show probable cause, and obtain a warrant. But because laws and courts haven't kept pace with license plate reader technology, officers face no such requirement before searching these databases. The authors note that if a police chief asked a city council for permission to install hundreds of cameras to investigate "haha," or if an officer requested a warrant to track someone for "LOL," they'd be laughed out of the room. The fact that these searches went unnoticed not only by the supervising agency but also by the thousands of other agencies whose systems were accessed demonstrates that departments can't be trusted to police themselves. In late 2025, Flock Safety announced it would replace free-text search reasons with a pre-populated dropdown menu of generic offense categories like "Traffic infraction" or "Other." The EFF characterizes this as a loss for transparency, noting it may explain why flagrant entries have decreased since early 2026 — not because abuse stopped, but because officers can now hide improper searches behind uniform categories.
The report calls on courts and state legislatures to impose strict, enforceable restrictions immediately, starting with rigid data deletion deadlines and an ironclad warrant requirement. The authors argue that if police want the power to track someone's movements, they must be required to convince a judge with evidence and probable cause. They shouldn't be able to bypass the Constitution with a search for "haha."