Josh Hawley Launches Investigation Into Flock Over Surveillance Concerns

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley opened an investigation Wednesday into Flock Safety cameras and its access to Americans’ data.

Hawley sent a letter to Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley requesting that he send all documents and information by Sept. 8 to investigate the company’s “collection, retention, and dissemination” from its artificial intelligence (AI) powered surveillance cameras. The senator chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, which will lead the investigation.

“Congress never authorized the network your industry has built. Your company’s internal policies are, in practice, the only safeguards for hundreds of millions of Americans,” Hawley wrote. “People across the country are now discovering that fact and demanding answers from their elected officials.In light of this abuse of driver information, the American people want to know who has access to their personal data and how. This investigation will seek those answers.”

“To facilitate that, please produce alldocuments and information specified in the attached annex no later than September 8, 2026. If you have questions about the scope of these requests, please contact my office to discuss,” Hawley continued.

The letter didn’t mention using subpoenas to extract the requested documents from Flock.

Hawley noted that the majority of people in the cameras’ records committed no crimes and that the “lack of safeguards” in the system had serious consequences.

“In Milwaukee, prosecutors charged a policeofficer who allegedly searched his girlfriend’s license plate 124 times and her former boyfriend’s plate 55times, entering “investigation” as his justification each time. Worse still, the officer was not caught by the company’s audit systems—he was caught because a private citizen looked up his own plate on a public website,” the letter stated.

Flock also collected information about a Florida resident who spent 13 days in jail and faced eight felony counts, including three counts of vehicular homicide, for a crime she did not commit, according to the letter.