Hawley launches investigation into Flock cameras’ massive surveillance program

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, has launched an investigation into Flock Safety’s national surveillance network and is demanding to know who has access to the personal data of Americans captured on Flock cameras.

Hawley wrote in a letter to Flock CEO Garrett Langley that the company has “assembled an unprecedented national surveillance network ” of more than 120,000 cameras across 49 states that conducts 20 billion vehicle scans every month.

“The overwhelming majority of Americans captured in those records did nothing wrong. 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,” he wrote.

Hawley said this has led to the “abuse and misuse of personal data” due to “the woeful lack of safeguards in these systems.”

He pointed out that in Missouri’s St. Charles County, the police department terminated its contract with Flock after an audit revealed that a civilian employee had run Flock searches for personal reasons unrelated to law enforcement activities.

And he cited a case in Milwaukee, where prosecutors charged a police officer who allegedly searched his girlfriend’s license plate number 124 times and her former boyfriend’s plate 55 times.

Flock’s safeguards didn’t catch the misconduct of the Milwaukee officer, who was caught after the former boyfriend searched his own plate on haveibeenflocked.com and discovered it had been searched for on numerous occasions.

Hawley said the surveillance notifications have also resulted in mistaken arrests, such as that of a Florida woman who spent 13 days in jail and faced multiple felony counts after investigators mistakenly arrested her based on a search of Flock’s network.

“Errors and false positives add insult to injury,” Hawley wrote.

He cited one California police department that found that 71 percent of its Flock alerts “were wrong” and noted the Los Angeles Police Department ended its Flock contract after an audit showed its officers had stopped 161 vehicles incorrectly flagged as stolen.

Hawley said Americans want to know who has access to their personal data collected on Flock’s network and has asked the company to provide all relevant documents and information no later than Sept. 8.

“Once cameras collect driver data, uncertainty abounds in how your company and its customers can sell or use data,” Hawley wrote, adding that the company’s $8.3 billion valuation creates “enormous pressure to find new commercial applications.”

Hawley said he wants law enforcement to have the tools it needs to catch criminal offenders but argued that “Americans do not surrender their privacy rights when they drive to work, drop their kids off at school or go to church.”