The controversy surrounding the AI license plate recognition cameras continues to simmer in the United States. Flock Safety, the CEO of Garrett Langley, recently stated in an interview with Fox News that society should not view privacy and public safety as a binary choice, but rather seek a compromise between the two.
He compared a complete ban on such devices to “banning cars,” stating that a more realistic approach is to establish a regulatory mechanism rather than simply stopping the technology itself. According to him, what needs to be addressed more urgently at present are issues related to data retention times and accountability for law enforcement officers who abuse the system.
Media investigation escalates the controversy
This statement came after public doubts began to rise sharply. On August 19, The Washington Post published a report stating that at least 69 law enforcement officers had been charged, prosecuted, or convicted of abusing a Flock or similar license plate recognition system. In at least 15 of these cases, it was not the police departments internally who first noticed the issues, but rather the victims, activists, or journalists.
The report also mentioned that journalists identified three more officers with abnormal usage through public query records. One officer from Indianapolis conducted 3,759 queries on the vehicles of his wife and two acquaintances within 10 months, averaging about 12 queries per day. Relevant departments stated that they had not previously audited the officers' query activities on a regular basis, and both of these officers have since been disciplined.
Flock requires the implementation of audit tools by the end of the year
6 days before the release of the report by The Washington Post, Flock announced that it required all law enforcement clients to enable Audit Assistance by the end of this year. This tool is used to identify abnormal query patterns. This feature has been optional since April of this year. Flock stated that among the approximately 7,000 institutions using its system, about one-third have already enabled this feature.
Langley also indicates that the company has recently reduced the recommended data retention period to 7 days. In contrast, some states in the United States currently have a strictest limit of 21 days. He believes that regulatory authorities should prioritize setting clearer requirements for retention periods and accountability.
Both parties in Congress exert pressure in tandem with technological capabilities
The pressure faced by Flock does not come solely from the media. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders stated this month that he would introduce a bill to stop "massive surveillance" by AI. Republican Congressman Tim Burchett of the House of Representatives has spearheaded another bill proposing to ban the federal government from purchasing Flock cameras. Senator Josh Hawley has also launched a separate investigation.
On the same day, WIRED also revealed that Flock has developed a AI tool that can identify drivers based on their movement trajectories even in the absence of license plates and names. Langley did not deny this. He stated that AI “is extremely powerful, but also very dangerous,” and its use for public safety requires third-party verification, especially as mistakes by the system cannot be tolerated.
Flock indicates that its technology was involved in over 1 million criminal investigations last year and helped to locate more than 10,000 missing persons. However, these figures come from the company's own published investigation statistics. The company also acknowledges that this statistical method is still in its early stages, and the outside world can continue to question and verify it.
