Schumer demands answers from Flock Safety's CEO

WASHINGTON | On Monday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer demanded answers from Flock Safety, the private company behind a nationwide network of license plate cameras, about what it does with the data it collects on Americans and demanded personal data not tied to a crime be deleted from Flock's servers. In a letter to Flock CEO Garrett Langley, Schumer pressed the company on its National Lookup Tool, which lets agencies search camera data collected outside their own jurisdictions, and on recent reports of hacked cameras and misuse of license plate readers. Schumer called on the company to respond by Oct. 16. Flock has deployed about 120,000 cameras across 49 states. Its cameras capture license plates and vehicle characteristics, along with the time and location of each image, and local agencies can open their camera networks to other Flock users nationwide. Reports show the company has built a tool to link a license plate to the person behind it and to that person's relatives, drawing on data brokers and breached data. Flock also sells drones and gunshot detectors, and its software can combine them with other surveillance cameras, including ones the company does not own. "There's a private company putting cameras on street corners across the country, and it doesn't just track your license plate. It logs where you've been in a database police across the country can search, and its software can link your car to your phone number and your family," said Schumer. "Americans have no idea who's looking at that information, or why it has to be collected in the first place. They deserve to know." "A company can't just come in and collect personal information about our entire lives and not answer any questions about it. We have no insight into what contracts this company has here, or how much of this information law enforcement is using," Schumer said. "Let me be clear. Any federal agency using this network to track Americans exercising their rights in our own state is unacceptable." Last month, a hacker group pulled down a Flock camera and recovered an encryption key stored on the device, unlocking more than 1.6 million images and 27,000 video clips. Flock had previously said its devices were secure and encrypted. "This company said the data on its cameras was encrypted and secure. Then hackers took one down and found the key sitting right there," Schumer said. "Most Americans just want to get to work and get home to their families without a private company keeping a file on where they go. The next step here is simple: turn the lens around and zoom in on Flock." Schumer also demanded answers from Flock about how much data from its cameras sits on its servers and whether any federal agency has accessed that data, directly or through local law enforcement. "Americans should not have to sacrifice their right to privacy simply by driving down a public street," Schumer wrote. Full text of the letter is available by visiting democrats.senate.gov.

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Schumer demands answers from Flock Safety's CEO

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