Warnock calls for federal guardrails on Flock cameras: "Bring some some sanity to this system"
Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock is pushing federal authorities to give guidance on how state and local law enforcement can avoid potential misuse of Flock Safety cameras and other automatic license plate readers.
This week, Warnock and Alabama Sen. Katie Britt sent a letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche urging the Department of Justice to answer their questions about how the agency is mitigating any misuse or unauthorized data access.
In the letter, Warnock notes that at least 20 law enforcement officers in Georgia have been arrested after abusing their access to the license plate reader systems, noting that many cases across the country "involve law enforcement officers stalking their current, former, or prospective romantic partners."
The senator held a press conference on Wednesday to discuss his concerns and the need for what he called guardrails on the systems.
"Right now, there are no federal policies to punish or even track when one of the 140,000 law enforcement officers across the country with access to license plate tracking data misuses that information, and unfortunately, we've seen dozens of cases of women being stalked by ex-boyfriends or husbands who have been given unrestrained access as law enforcement officers to this surveillance technology," Warnock said.
The Georgia Democrat argued that the Department of Justice is currently not taking any action to stop the abuse.
"So far, we've seen absolutely nothing, and this can't be a patchwork system, which is what we have right now. People addressing this state by state, municipality by municipality. The federal government, the DOJ, has a unique set of tools, and I'm calling on them to use those tools to bring some some sanity to this system," he said.
Warnock's comments come in the same week that Mayor Andre Dickens introduced proposed legislation that would establish a review and oversight system for surveillance tools used by city departments and agencies. That legislation was referred back to committee to be discussed at a later date.
The Atlanta Police Department has revised its license plate recognition policy to add monthly audits, updated training and tighter restrictions on access by outside agencies. The policy also warns that misuse could result in administrative or criminal consequences. Other law enforcement agencies around Georgia have done the same after audits found possible misuse.
Flock CEO Garrett Langley apologized in an interview with CBS News for instances where its data was misused by law enforcement officers, but defended the product, saying that the company was working on safeguards.
"It gets to this issue that when you are given power, which many people are, particularly in law enforcement, you should have higher standards of accountability," Langley said. "And so, I don't think that Flock created police abuse. I think we're the first company to ever shine a light on it and build the tools to find it."
