U.S. Senator Katie Britt Highlights Flock Camera Concerns, Supports Law Enforcement During Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.) recently discussed automatic license plate readers (ALPR), like Flock Safety cameras, during a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism hearing, including her concerns over the misuse of this technology and how, when properly utilized, they can be used as tools to combat crime and support law enforcement. This hearing comes on the same week that Senators Britt and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) sent a letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) to provide state and local law enforcement agencies with guidance on how to prevent the misuse of ALPRs. Senator Britt began her line of questioning by acknowledging the recent public interest in Flock cameras: “Obviously, this is an important topic, and it’s received a great deal of public attention in the last couple of weeks … I think two things can be true at the same time. One, we want to keep and make sure that our law enforcement officers have what they need to keep America safe … But we must, we must, protect people’s Fourth Amendment rights. And when we’re looking at this, I want to make sure that we’re kind of looking at the total picture.” Senator Britt continued, discussing her recent efforts on the misuse of ALPR technology: “Senator Warnock and I came together and wrote a letter … We talked about our great concern over the widespread reports that there was misuse regarding these automatic license plate readers. In here we talk about many of the good things that we think have resulted, but ultimately believe that appropriate safeguards are necessary to protect against the unauthorized access and abuse that has come to light.” She then questioned one of the witnesses on the panel, Sheriff Ross Teeple, asking him, “When we’re looking at cases in Alabama, we kind of dug in and took a look at what we were seeing there. We saw that there were missing children, endangered persons, runaway kidnappings, that this has helped locate that person and bring them home. Also, more recently, someone, an older adult with dementia and ultimately getting them home. However, you know, we’ve seen misuse and abuse in Alabama as well. When we’re looking at this emerging technology … We want to make sure that we get this right … You’ve obviously had access to this … Can you highlight what you believe would be some legitimate uses of this technology and maybe something anecdotally that you’ve seen it help actually solve with regards to safety and security of the people that you serve?” Sheriff Teeple recounted a recent tragic story, noting, “There was an aggressive driver that ran a young lady’s vehicle and pushed her into oncoming traffic. And she died, unfortunately. And we found him because of an automatic license plate reader.” The Senator then discussed with Sheriff Teeple the recommended guidelines for Flock cameras recently issued by the National Sheriffs’ Association and other law enforcement groups. Sheriff Teeple remarked , “One of the biggest ones is you can read right in there is taking still images of license plates, not live streaming, not taking video, taking still images of license plates for use of that data alone.” Senator Britt responded, noting, “I think when you’re looking to some of the reports that we’ve heard about people, whether it’s domestic violence victims, whether it’s gun owners, everything in between, this technology being utilized to harass and or track someone is absolutely, completely unacceptable. We’ve got to figure out how we can do this the right way. And based on your experience from what you’re telling me, is there are some guidelines, there are some things that we could be doing that we’re not doing now, that we could demand, that would ensure that one of the things that we’ve talked about in this letter and that I hope, Mr. Chair, I hope you get an opportunity to look at it, is making sure that DOJ does its part in all of this. We’ve asked for the proper oversight, the proper guidance, and we hope that state and local law enforcement officers will get that because something has to be done here.” You can view the Senator’s full line of questioning here . ###