A Senate Judiciary subcommittee spent Wednesday picking apart Flock Safety's license plate camera network, and the company did not send anyone to defend it.
The Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, led by Sen. Josh Hawley with Sen. Dick Durbin as ranking member, heard from five witnesses: a Florida woman jailed for vehicular homicide after Flock camera data helped link her SUV to a fatal crash despite witnesses describing a differently colored car, an Arizona sheriff who canceled his county's contract, a security researcher, and attorneys from the ACLU and the Institute for Justice. Flock's CEO Garrett Langley sent a letter instead of testifying, admitting the company does little oversight of client searches and instead relies on police departments to police themselves. Witnesses described officers tracking exes through the database, agencies skipping required audits for years, and federal immigration agents allegedly using local officers as a side door into searches state law would otherwise block. Researcher Benn Jordan also testified that certain camera models can be taken over in under a minute by anyone with physical access, and that Flock law enforcement accounts have turned up for sale on a dark web marketplace.
The hearing reframes Flock less as a rogue surveillance company and more as a vendor that built a powerful search tool, then left the guardrails to whichever local agency happens to be running the search. That distinction matters for any fix: better encryption solves the hacking problem, but it does not stop an officer from running a plate search out of curiosity or handing results to ICE. The Institute for Justice's proposed model law, requiring supervisor sign-off and regular audits, targets exactly that gap.
This was only a fact-finding hearing, not an investigation, but if it becomes one, senators can subpoena Langley instead of just inviting him.