Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that Flock license-plate cameras are pushing America toward a surveillance-state fight, with police tools once framed around public safety now raising questions about how easily innocent drivers can be tracked.
The Republican governor said the technology has expanded so fast in Florida communities that residents are right to worry, especially after cases in other states where officers allegedly used Flock searches to monitor former romantic partners.
“So I think these cameras, these license plate readers, I think it’s out of control,” DeSantis said during a press conference this week.
The examples that caught DeSantis’ attention involved personal misuse, not high-level crimefighting.
A Kentucky police officer was arrested for allegedly using Flock to track his ex-girlfriend more than 2,000 times.
In South Carolina, an officer was fired after she allegedly ran a former romantic partner’s license plate 166 times through the Flock camera system.
“When I see like a police officer using this to track like an ex-girlfriend, I’m like, ‘You know, what the hell’s going on, you know, with this?’” DeSantis said.
DeSantis said he wants law enforcement to be able to hold criminals accountable, but argued that widespread plate scanning has become a different privacy issue.
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“No one’s been stronger on law enforcement than me,” DeSantis said. “But I don’t want to have this become a surveillance state.”
The governor distinguished Florida highway patrol’s plate-reader use for tolling from local police departments using Flock as an investigative network. He also said he has never supported automatic speeding tickets arriving in the mail without a human officer making the call.
DeSantis said his office has requested a look at how state agencies are using the technology, while he described the current system as needing to be “overhauled for sure.”
Washington Republicans are raising similar questions about the company’s national reach.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, wrote to Flock CEO Garrett Langley demanding answers about access to personal data gathered by the company’s cameras.
Every month, Hawley wrote, Flock cameras produce 20 billion vehicle scans, with more than 120,000 cameras operating across 49 states. He called it “an unprecedented national surveillance network.”
“The overwhelming majority of Americans captured in those records did nothing wrong,” Hawley wrote.
Hawley said the company’s artificial-intelligence system does not just help with individual local cases. Instead, he argued, it feeds vehicle data into a nationwide database that customers can search.
The Missouri senator blamed “the woeful lack of safeguards in these systems” for what he described as “abuse and misuse of personal data.”
Hawley cited St. Charles County, Missouri, where a police department cut ties with Flock after an audit found that a civilian employee had used the system for personal searches that had nothing to do with law enforcement.
Another case came out of Milwaukee, where prosecutors charged a police officer who allegedly searched his girlfriend’s license plate 124 times and her former boyfriend’s plate 55 times. Hawley said the former boyfriend found the searches only after checking his own plate on haveibeenflocked.com.
The Florida fight also put DeSantis back on one of his broader fights with artificial intelligence.
The governor said his proposed AI bill of rights could have covered Flock cameras, online monitoring and related technology issues. The Senate passed a version, DeSantis said, but the Florida House “wouldn’t even do anything about it.”
“Remember, we were pushing for that because the Flock is artificial intelligence, so whether it’s online with digital surveillance or whether it’s with cameras, at what point are we just going to be free to be not have to deal with any of that?” DeSantis said.
DeSantis said he has been studying New Hampshire’s approach after lawmakers there addressed camera use on state rights of way. He said the state does not receive the information, leaving sheriffs and police departments as the users of the data.
Because Flock cameras are mainly being adopted at the local level in Florida, DeSantis said any real restrictions would have to come from the Legislature.
“I just I don’t want to be in a situation where these tech companies, a handful of tech companies, know everything about you and know where you’re going,” DeSantis said.
He urged Floridians who share those concerns to question candidates for office, especially legislative candidates, about whether they support new privacy protections.
Hawley also warned that bad alerts can turn plate-scanning errors into real consequences.
A Florida woman spent 13 days in jail and faced multiple felony counts after investigators mistakenly arrested her based on a search of Flock’s network.
“Errors and false positives add insult to injury,” Hawley wrote.
In California, Hawley cited one police department that found 71 percent of its Flock alerts “were wrong.” He also wrote that the Los Angeles Police Department ended its Flock contract after an audit showed officers had stopped 161 vehicles that had been incorrectly flagged as stolen.
Hawley asked Flock to provide documents and information by Sept. 8. He also questioned whether the company’s $8.3 billion valuation could create pressure to find new ways to profit from driver data.
“Once cameras collect driver data, uncertainty abounds in how your company and its customers can sell or use data,” Hawley wrote.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, joined the Republican pushback on Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power” after co-host Joe Mathieu asked whether Flock cameras could become a campaign issue.
“I don’t like Flock cameras. I don’t like government surveillance, I don’t think the government should be surveilling innocent citizens,” Cruz said.
Cruz said police should go after criminals, but Americans are still presumed innocent.
“China has built an espionage and surveillance state,” Cruz said. “I don’t want to see America the same way. I think these Flock cameras really invite abuse, and I’m hopeful the political process will constrain it.”
Hawley said police should have tools to catch offenders, but argued that “Americans do not surrender their privacy rights when they drive to work, drop their kids off at school or go to church.”
