3 Coweta County Sheriff’s Office employees resign after Flock audit

Editor’s note: The video above is from previous coverage.

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — Three Coweta County Sheriff’s Office employees have resigned after an internal Flock Safety audit flagged their accounts.

According to deputies, the employees, who have not been identified, stepped down before the audit ended and an internal investigation began.

RELATED: PODCAST | Inside the bipartisan pushback against Flock Safety’s surveillance network

The sheriff’s office has asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into the cases. It also said all Flock users will undergo extra training on how to properly use the license plate reader system.

“We expect every employee with access to these systems to use them in a manner that is lawful, ethical and in accordance with agency policy,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “Protecting the integrity of these systems and maintaining the trust of the community is a responsibility we take very seriously.”

In the past two months, several Georgia law enforcement officers — including but not limited to three Fayetteville police officers, one Conyers police supervisor, three Cherokee County deputies, one DeKalb County deputy, one Greene County deputy and one Habersham deputy — have been arrested, fired or both after they allegedly misused the department’s Flock system.

ANF INVESTIGATES: Flock says its cameras don’t track people. Its own training videos say otherwise

The rash of cases is likely because of a new “audit assistance” tool that the Atlanta-based Flock Safety launched in April. The company told Atlanta News First Investigates that the tool uses artificial intelligence to flag searches that may be outside a department’s policy, sending questionable activity to supervisors for review.

While law enforcement argues the cameras are helpful for catching criminals, some citizens worry about their impact on personal privacy.