Senator Josh Hawley introduced the Stop Flock Abuse Act on September 30, moving the fight over automated license plate readers from city halls to Congress. The Missouri Republican announced the bill the same day he chaired a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee hearing on AI.
The measure writes rules the camera industry has so far set for itself. It would ban facial recognition on plate reader networks, stop local governments from selling or sharing the data with non-government third parties, and require officers to get written approval before running a search. Every query would land in an audit log. Driver records would have to be deleted permanently after ten days, with what the bill calls narrow exceptions.
A companion effort is running in the House. Representative Thomas Massie introduced the Flock-Off Act on September 2, which would withhold federal funds from agencies that install plate readers and biometric surveillance cameras.
The backdrop is a widening revolt. More than 50 cities and counties have dropped Flock Safety, a company that says it works with over 7,000 law enforcement agencies. It declined an invitation to testify at last week’s hearing. Hawley opened an investigation in August, writing to chief executive Garrett Langley about networks that pool scans into a searchable national database.
Flock’s chief legal officer, Dan Haley, told Hawley in a September 8 letter that the company would welcome a federal framework instead of rules set by any single vendor.
