Security1 publisher2 min readPublished
Hawley and Sanders bills would apply to every license-plate camera vendor, Flock's rivals included
Sens. Josh Hawley and Bernie Sanders introduced license-plate camera bills within three days, each covering every ALPR vendor, including Motorola and Axon. Departments that left Flock for a rival in recent weeks would sit under the same rules.
The Watch · Security desk
What happened
- The Sanders, Merkley and Ocasio-Cortez bill, introduced Friday, would bar federal use of ALPR cameras and deny federal funding to states that deploy them.
- Hawley's Stop Flock Abuse Act, introduced Wednesday, would add safeguards for AI-enabled cameras and protect constitutional rights, according to its sponsor.
- Floridian Lindsey Isaacs, featured at Hawley's hearing last week, was jailed for 13 days on wrong Flock reader data after her car matched a suspect vehicle's model.
- On September 23, researcher Joshua Michael published a map showing about 300,000 Flock-connected devices and more than 170,000 Flock cameras nationwide.
- Flock has allegedly filed a trademark infringement complaint against Michael, who said the company also sent him a cease-and-desist letter threatening litigation.
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Why it matters
- decision If either bill passes, a department cannot reduce its exposure by changing suppliers. Its remaining choice is whether to run plate readers at all.
- cost Under the Sanders bill, a state that keeps its cameras pays in forfeited federal funding, so state budget offices would gain a say over police camera contracts.
- constraint Flock's legal threats against Michael raise the cost for any outside researcher who tests its systems. Congress has already relied on that outside work at a hearing.
Michael's allegation about Flock's own security dates to November 2025, when, he said, the company's website exposed an access token that could be used without logging in [12]. He alleges the token let him query a Flock geographic information system and pull location data from it [13]. If the token worked as he describes, anyone who found it on the page could have run the same queries without an account. The Record's report does not include a Flock statement on the token.
Flock's response so far has gone to Michael and to its customers. A reporter friend told Michael that Flock emailed customers calling him a malicious actor and saying it had notified law enforcement, Michael said [15]. "I'm not backing down," he said in an Instagram post [16].
The size of the fleet is also in dispute. Flock has consistently said it deploys 120,000 cameras [10]. Michael's map puts the count at least 50,000 higher, about 42 percent above the company's figure [1]. Hawley cited Michael's work at last week's hearing [11], where members of both parties expressed alarm about the technology [21].
Hawley's case was about linkage. "What seems to make these networks unique is not just the sheer number of cameras; it's the fact that they're all linked together, empowered and searchable by AI," Hawley said [7].
Sanders went after the vendors. "We cannot allow America to become a surveillance state where a handful of AI oligarchs profit by giving the government the power to track our every movement," he said in a statement [8]. His bill, written with Merkley and Ocasio-Cortez, would also let Americans sue the federal government if ALPR deployment violates their rights, according to a press release [4].
Privacy and civil liberties activists have long worried that the uproar over Flock, the most visible supplier, let companies with very similar practices off the hook [22]. Grassroots campaigns in red and blue states have pointed to officers using the cameras to stalk people, and to arrests of innocent drivers whose plates or car models resembled a suspect's [19].
Neither bill is law [1]. The Record reports it is unclear whether congressional leaders will make time for ALPR votes in the lame-duck session after the elections, and that the issue is certain to come back next year [20]. Until a vote, existing ALPR contracts are unaffected.
What to watch
- Whether congressional leaders give either ALPR bill floor time in the lame-duck session after the elections.
- Whether Flock answers Michael's access-token allegation directly, or moves from a cease-and-desist letter to a lawsuit.
- Whether departments leaving Flock keep signing with Motorola, Axon or other ALPR suppliers while the bills are pending.