License Plate Reader (LPR) credit: Flock Safety
August 27, 2026 - WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, as Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) launched an investigation into Flock Safety’s AI-powered web of thousands of cameras across the nation. As part of the investigation, Hawley is demanding Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley provide answers as to what safeguards the company employs to protect Americans’ data.
Related: Yosemite National Park Now Utilizing Six Flock Cameras as Institute for Justice Calls Flock Safety’s Automated License Plate Reader Proposed Reforms ‘Window Dressing’
The investigation is the latest initiative in Hawley’s work to protect Americans from AI surveillance and privacy threats. Just two weeks ago, Senator Hawley held a hearing exposing the exploitative practices of AI surveillance pricing and consumer data harvesting.
“As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, I am investigating Flock Safety’s collection, retention, and dissemination of the data generated by its artificial intelligence surveillance cameras. In a few short years, Flock has assembled an unprecedented national surveillance network. Your company boasts more than 120,000 cameras across 49 states and more than 20 billion vehicle scans every month. The overwhelming majority of the 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,” wrote Senator Hawley.
He continued, “To be sure, I want law enforcement to have tools to catch offenders and keep the public safe. But Americans do not surrender their privacy rights when they drive to work, drop their kids off at school, or go to church. The Supreme Court has recognized that a comprehensive, retrospective record of a person’s movements is different in kind from ordinary observation in public. 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. People across the country are now discovering that fact and demanding answers from their elected officials.”
“In light of this abuse of driver information, the American people want to know who has access to their personal data and how. This investigation will seek those answers. To facilitate that, please produce all documents and information specified in the attached annex no later than September 8, 2026. If you have questions about the scope of these requests, please contact my office to discuss,” Senator Hawley concluded.
Read the full letter here or below.
August 26, 2026
Garrett Langley
Chief Executive Officer
Flock Safety
3284 Northside Parkway NW
Atlanta, GA 30327
Dear Mr. Langley:
As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, I am investigating Flock Safety’s collection, retention, and dissemination of the data generated by its artificial intelligence surveillance cameras.
In a few short years, Flock has assembled an unprecedented national surveillance network. Your company boasts more than 120,000 cameras across 49 states and more than 20 billion vehicle scans every month. The overwhelming majority of the 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.
Recent examples of abuse and misuse of personal data reveal the woeful lack of safeguards in these systems. In Missouri, the St. Charles County Police Department terminated its contract this month after an audit revealed that a civilian employee had run Flock searches for personal reasons, completely unrelated to their law enforcement duties. Sadly, my home state is not an outlier. In Milwaukee, prosecutors charged a police officer who allegedly searched his girlfriend’s license plate 124 times and her former boyfriend’s plate 55 times, entering “investigation” as his justification each time. Worse still, the officer was not caught by the company’s audit systems—he was caught because a private citizen looked up his own plate on a public website.
Errors and false positives add insult to injury. A Florida woman spent 13 days in jail and faced eight felony counts, including three counts of vehicular homicide, after investigators arrested an owner based on their search of Flock’s network for a vehicle description. Prosecutors dismissed the charges seven months later when law enforcement discovered the error and arrested a different person. One California police department found that a staggering 71% of its alerts were wrong, and the Los Angeles Police Department dropped its Flock contract after an audit showed officers had stopped 161 vehicles incorrectly flagged as stolen in the space of two months.
Furthermore, 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.
To be sure, I want law enforcement to have tools to catch offenders and keep the public safe. But Americans do not surrender their privacy rights when they drive to work, drop their kids off at school, or go to church. The Supreme Court has recognized that a comprehensive, retrospective record of a person’s movements is different in kind from ordinary observation in public. 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. People across the country are now discovering that fact and demanding answers from their elected officials.
In light of this abuse of driver information, the American people want to know who has access to their personal data and how. This investigation will seek those answers. To facilitate that, please produce all documents and information specified in the attached annex no later than September 8, 2026. If you have questions about the scope of these requests, please contact my office to discuss.
Sincerely,
Josh Hawley
Chairman
Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism
Committee on the Judiciary
Source: Senator Josh Hawley
