Surveillance tech CEOs skip Senate hearing on police camera abuse

Our Take

Atlanta News First caught something worth sitting with: when Congress finally called surveillance company executives to answer for how police are using ALPR networks, the CEOs didn't show. Flock Safety, headquartered right there in Atlanta, was among the no-shows. That's not a scheduling conflict, that's a message. These companies are happy to cash checks from thousands of police departments and happy to put out slick PR about "community safety," but asking actual questions in front of elected officials apparently doesn't fit the business model.

This matters because Flock and its peers have built a de facto national license plate tracking system with almost no federal oversight, no uniform rules on data retention, and no real consequences when cops misuse it to stalk exes, snoop on ICE's behalf, or run searches with zero judicial review. Empty chairs at a Senate hearing are what regulatory capture looks like in practice: avoid the spotlight, keep installing cameras, let local governments sort out the mess later. If the people running these companies won't answer basic accountability questions from U.S. senators, why should any city council trust their assurances about privacy safeguards?

If this makes you want to know what's actually watching your own neighborhood, check our camera map to see documented ALPR locations near you, and if you want to push back, our take-action resources have concrete steps for raising this with local officials before it becomes someone else's normalized surveillance infrastructure.