A Georgia Officer Ran 85 Surveillance Searches on Two Colleagues Using a Licence-Plate Tracking System

Key points

• Alpharetta, Georgia patrolman Dustin Bozzo ran 56 Flock Safety searches on an ex-romantic partner between March and May 2025, and a further 29 on a second officer she was seen near.
• Flock Safety is an automatic licence-plate reader network, technology that logs where a vehicle has been spotted and when, sold to police departments across the United States.
• Bozzo resigned on 5 August 2025 after being placed on paid leave on 20 July, following an internal investigation.
• At least 45 documented cases of US officers misusing Flock Safety to track current or former romantic partners have now been recorded.
• An Alpharetta Police Department criminal investigation into Bozzo's conduct is ongoing.

Dustin Bozzo used to work the streets of Alpharetta, a suburb about 30 miles north of Atlanta. His tool of choice for one long surveillance campaign was not a car or a tip-off. It was software sitting on his work computer.

What did he actually do?

Between March and May 2025, Bozzo ran 85 searches on two colleagues using Flock Safety, an automatic licence-plate reader (ALPR) network. An ALPR system works by scanning number plates as cars pass cameras placed on roads, bridges and car parks, then logging each sighting with a time stamp and location. Police officers can query the database to find out where a particular vehicle has been.

Bozzo searched for his ex-partner's plate 56 times. When he noticed another officer's car kept appearing near hers, he began searching for that vehicle too, running 29 queries on it over the same period.

He also searched for her uncle's plate 18 times between 4 and 14 April, after learning she had borrowed the uncle's car following an accident.

For nearly every search, internal audit logs show Bozzo listed the reason as either "Wanted Person" or "Traffic Infraction". When investigators asked why, he said it was "just a quick keystroke."

Did he admit wrongdoing?

Yes, but with conditions. Bozzo told investigators he was not trying to intimidate anyone. He said he was checking that his ex had arrived home safely, because she often drove late at night. He claimed he was puzzled, not jealous, when he kept seeing the second officer's car nearby.

Internal affairs sergeant Jabbar Braithwaite, who wrote the full investigation report obtained by Wired, found no evidence of outright malice. He still concluded that Bozzo's use of Flock was "inconsistent with Department policy and the authorised use of the system," regardless of what motivated him.

Bozzo was placed on paid leave on 20 July and resigned on 5 August. A criminal investigation is underway inside the department's Criminal Investigations Division.

Why does this matter beyond one officer?

Flock Safety is installed in police departments across the United States, giving officers fast, detailed access to where almost any registered vehicle has travelled. That is enormously useful for legitimate policing. It is also, as this case shows, easy to point at a personal target.

At least 45 documented incidents now exist of US officers misusing Flock specifically to track romantic partners or ex-partners. The number likely understates reality: most departments do not publish audit logs, and many misuse cases surface only when a victim complains.

For ordinary drivers, the takeaway is straightforward. Your car's movements are being logged constantly in many cities. That data sits inside systems that individual officers can query, and the controls stopping personal misuse depend heavily on whether departments actually check their own audit trails.

Alpharetta's police chief told investigators the department holds itself to a "high standard" and acted immediately once misuse was spotted. The audit trail that caught Bozzo was built into Flock's system. Whether other departments run the same checks is a different question.

Common questions

Can police officers search licence-plate databases for any reason they want?

Technically, officers are restricted to work-related queries, and most systems log every search with a required reason code. In practice, oversight varies: some departments audit logs regularly, others rarely or never do.

What can ordinary people do if they think they are being tracked this way?

If you believe a law-enforcement officer is misusing surveillance tools to monitor you, contact the department's internal affairs unit in writing and, if that fails, your state attorney general's office, which can compel records.