Two bills introduced in Congress this week signal a bipartisan tipping point in the fight over AI-powered automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras. Sen. Josh Hawley's Stop Flock Abuse Act would bar ALPR companies from sharing data with third parties, cap data retention at 10 days, and prohibit facial recognition on the cameras. A separate bill from Sens. Bernie Sanders and Jeff Merkley and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez goes further, blocking federal agencies from using ALPRs and stripping federal funding from states that deploy them.
Lawmakers on both sides cited concerns about mass surveillance, officer stalking, and wrongful arrests. The source highlights the case of Lindsey Isaacs, who was jailed for 13 days after a Flock camera misidentified her car. It also notes cybersecurity researcher Joshua Michael's map of roughly 170,000 Flock cameras, which contradicts Flock's stated count of 120,000. Michael says Flock has sent him a cease-and-desist letter and called him a malicious actor in customer emails.
Flock says it supports legislation that sets guardrails for license plate reader use, arguing the technology improves public safety when paired with accountability and oversight. Privacy advocates, however, caution that the intense focus on Flock may let competitors like Motorola and Axon avoid similar scrutiny. The source reports that some police departments have dropped Flock only to sign with other ALPR vendors. Whether Congress will vote on the bills this session is unclear, but the issue is expected to return next year.