Leadership1 publisher3 min readPublished
Hawley's Stop Flock Abuse Act would cap license-plate data retention at 10 days
Sen. Josh Hawley's bill would make agencies permanently delete license-plate reader data within 10 days unless a criminal investigation is open. Police who trace where a car went weeks ago would lose that search in any case not yet opened.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
What happened
- The bill would also restrict local governments from selling or sharing any vehicle data the cameras collect.
- Surveillance networks covered by the bill would be barred from using facial recognition technology.
- In a letter to the panel, Flock CEO Garrett Langley acknowledged that Congress should create a federal framework for the cameras.
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Why it matters
- constraint If every local government customer is barred from sharing its reads, any one city can draw on far less of Flock's 120,000-camera, 49-state network beyond its own cameras.
- capability Written approval and a preserved audit log would give councils a record of who searched for which vehicle and on whose authority.
- precedent Flock has accepted a federal framework, so the fight moves to its terms. The company's demand to preserve police use of the tool makes the 10-day window the likely first dispute.
- decision A city renewing ALPR service this quarter sets its retention period now. Long retention keeps lookback searches, but it also builds up records and contract terms that a federal rule on Hawley's terms would force it to unwind.
The board-deck version fits on one slide: a federal license-plate-reader bill has arrived, so compliance risk is rising for anyone who runs the cameras. That slide is early, and it is too broad. Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican, introduced the Stop Flock Abuse Act on Wednesday [1]. The provisions CBS News described are addressed to local governments and agencies [3][4]. The same cameras are also popular with businesses [2]. The CBS account does not say whether the deletion and sharing limits would reach private operators.
Several of the bill's provisions add process. Searches would need written approval and an audit log, and data would have to be encrypted and kept in the United States [6]. I'd expect agencies to absorb those requirements without much change to how they use the cameras. The deletion rule is different [3]. A read that is not part of a criminal investigation already under way would be gone before a case opened on day 11 could search it [1].
Among the witnesses who did testify at last week's hearing was Lindsey Isaacs of Florida [12]. She was wrongfully accused of fleeing a fatal accident and jailed in solitary confinement after her Dodge Durango was misidentified on a Flock camera [12]. "I was terrified I was facing the possibility of spending the rest of my life in prison for a crash that I knew I had not been involved in," she said [13].
Other lawmakers are using other channels. Sens. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, and Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican, wrote this month to Attorney General Todd Blanche. They asked the Justice Department for guidance to state and local governments on preventing misuse of the cameras [15]. Several House bills would limit camera use or restrict federal funding for the systems [16]. Guidance, a funding condition and a statute would reach operators on different timetables. None has yet taken effect [2].
A skeptic on a city council would say the bill has only just been introduced, and that the companies with the most at stake did not come to explain their products. Executives from Flock, Axon, Motorola and Verkada declined to testify [7]. "I think that that's unfortunate and I think we need to hear from them about what their networks do," Hawley said at the hearing [8]. The answer is that the vendor named in the bill's title has already accepted the premise. Its chief executive, Garrett Langley, told the panel in a letter that Congress should create a federal framework [9]. Flock's website says such frameworks "should preserve law enforcement's ability to use an important public safety tool while requiring accountability, oversight and responsible data practices" [10].
What to watch
- Whether the bill's full text extends the 10-day deletion and sharing limits to businesses and other private camera owners.
- Whether the Justice Department issues the state and local guidance Warnock and Britt requested, and whether that guidance sets any retention limit.
- Whether Flock, Axon, Motorola or Verkada proposes its own retention period in answer to the 10-day window.