Automated license plate readers are headed for a Senate hearing. Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican who chairs the Judiciary Committee’s crime and counterterrorism panel, said Friday that the session will be held on Wednesday, and that four executives have been asked to appear.
A statement from Hawley’s office named the four invitees for Wednesday’s hearing: Verkada’s Filip Kaliszan, Motorola Solutions’ Greg Brown, Axon Enterprise’s Rick Smith and Flock Safety’s Garrett Langley. The other three had not confirmed.
Verkada will help the panel but not in person: a company spokesperson said Kaliszan cannot attend, and that the firm will pass information along instead.
The inquiry started in August, when Hawley wrote to Langley about how Flock’s AI cameras gather, hold and disseminate what they record. Earlier this month he put the same questions to the other three vendors.
His stated worry is scale. Flock alone runs more than 120,000 cameras across 49 states, and pooled reads can rebuild a driver’s movements over months. “The overwhelming majority of the Americans captured in those records did nothing wrong,” he said when the investigation began.
The hearing lands as cities and states pull back. Boston declined to renew its Flock agreement, Missouri’s governor capped retention at 30 days, Texas froze new highway permits and Florida ordered readers off state roads.
Whether legislation follows is unclear. Vendors argue that national standards, not bans, are what departments need.
