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

October 23, 2022

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. In a tragic example of how not to handle conflicts, Lieutenant Heiar's actions demonstrate the need for responsible AI governance and trustworthiness in law enforcement. Through contributors—JOIN US—to learn more about the importance of protecting individual rights and preventing such incidents.

Alleged deployer

wichita-police-department-(kansas), victor-heiar, stalkers, law-enforcement, kechi-police-department-(kansas)

Alleged developer

surveillance-technology-developers, flock-safety, automated-license-plate-reader-(alpr)-developers

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

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Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.