Flock Safety, the largest U.S. seller of automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras, continues to draw national scrutiny. That debate now includes the halls of Congress, as a Senate Judiciary subcommittee examined how the company's data is secured, searched, and shared.

Flock's network of privately owned and operated cameras and its nationwide database have drawn bipartisan concern over the past several months. Beyond mass surveillance concerns, critics have pointed to incidents of false positives, cooperation with federal agents on immigration enforcement, and even tracking women seeking abortions across state lines.

The Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, chaired by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) as ranking member, heard from five witnesses: a Florida woman wrongfully jailed in a case that began with a Flock camera image, an Arizona sheriff who ended his county's Flock contract, a security researcher, and policy attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Institute for Justice.

No one from Flock testified. Invitations were also extended to Axon, Motorola, and Verkada. Flock's CEO, Garrett Langley, sent the subcommittee a letter instead of appearing.

The note, read aloud by Hawley, stated: "Flock acknowledges it conducts very little oversight of client searches and instead relies on its clients to police themselves. The underlying search records are owned and controlled by each customer agency. Flock clients control the data retention. Until last year, Flock customers could enter the reason for a search into a free text field."

The absence was notable, though not necessarily unusual for this kind of proceeding.

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