Hawley opens investigation into ‘unprecedented’ scale of Flock surveillance

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) on Wednesday sent a letter to Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley, raising concerns about the company’s “unprecedented national surveillance network.”Hawley’s letter comes as Flock faces national pushback over its automatic license plate readers, powered by artificial intelligence, that allow police to better track cars that have been stolen or used in crimes. Flock currently has over 120,000 cameras active across 49 states and has struck deals with thousands of municipalities. In his capacity as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, Hawley said he would be opening an investigation into Flock’s “collection, retention, and dissemination of the data generated by its artificial intelligence cameras” “The overwhelming majority of the Americans captured in those records did nothing wrong,” Hawley said in the letter. “Instead of serving discrete local investigations, as contemplated by our constitutional processes and safeguards, these camera networks harness artificial intelligence to pool what they capture into a national database that customers can search.”Hawley particularly raised concerns about police officers’ misuse of Flock cameras to stalk former partners, saying the incidents “reveal the woeful lack of safeguards in these systems.”Hawley cited an incident at the St. Charles County Police Department in Missouri in which a civilian employee at the agency had run searches for personal reasons, as well as reports of a Milwaukee police officer searching his partner’s license plate over 100 times. Additionally, he noted there have been several instances of vehicles being inaccurately connected to crimes, resulting in the arrest of the wrong person.Flock’s ALPRs capture images of every vehicle that drives by, regardless of whether the car is the subject of a police investigation. Langley earlier this month announced several changes to the company’s systems, including tightening the retention period to seven days and requiring a search to be tied to a case number.Another area of concern for Hawley was what happens to the data after it’s collected, a particular area of concern for privacy advocates and anti-Flock groups.“Once cameras collect driver data, uncertainty abounds in how your company and its customers can sell or use data. Flock’s $8.3 billion valuation comes with enormous pressure to find new commercial applications. Americans demand a full accounting for how their driver data is stored or sold,” he said.Flock has previously said it does not sell data, and the data collected is owned by police departments contracted with the company. Flock spokesman Paris Lewbel told the Washington Examiner that the company had received Hawley’s letter and is looking forward to “the opportunity to provide the Subcommittee with additional information.”“We will be responding directly to the questions raised and we look forward to working with Senator Hawley and the Subcommittee to provide additional context about how our technology works, the safeguards built into our platform, and how law enforcement agencies use Flock to solve crime and find missing people,” Lewbel said.At the end of his letter, Hawley clarified that he wants law enforcement to have the tools to reduce crime, but emphasized that it should not come at the cost of people’s privacy.FLOCK CEO OUTLINES POLICY CHANGES AFTER UPROAR OVER ‘SURVEILLANCE’ NETWORK“Congress never authorized the network your industry has built. Your company’s internal policies are, in practice, the only safeguards for hundreds of millions of Americans,” Hawley said.Hawley asked Flock to respond by Sept. 8 to his questions and provide documents detailing the company’s policies for several areas, including data retention, camera accuracy, and who can access the data collected.