West Virginia News

W.Va. Lawmakers, Flock Safety Representatives Spar Over Information Requests

CHARLESTON - A letter sent by West Virginia lawmakers to Flock Safety representatives demanded answers to submitted questions by a Friday deadline, though the company claims it has been cooperative and willing to talk.

House Government Organization Committee Chairman Chris Phillips, R-Barbour, and committee members Tristan Leavitt, R-Kanawha; Patrick Lucas, R-Cabell; and Ryan Browning, R-Wayne; sent the letter Monday to Dan Haley, chief legal officer for Atlanta-based Flock Safety, a major automated license plate reader and surveillance technology provider.

In the letter, members threatened to use the committee's subpoena powers to obtain answers to a series of questions submitted to the company in August and September following a meeting of the Joint Standing Committee on Government Organization during legislative interim meetings where a Flock representative provided testimony to lawmakers.

"Six weeks after our initial August 14, 2026, request, you have failed to produce these answers," the lawmakers wrote. "As our last letter clearly stated, we do not intend to sit for a briefing with you until Flock Safety has responded in full to our requests."

The letter accused Flock of trying to meet with lawmakers in off-the-record briefings behind closed doors to answer its follow-up questions regarding the security of its automated license plate reader technology due to numerous news stories over the last several months detailing abuse of the technology by law enforcement and hacking concerns.

"Meeting behind closed doors is no substitute for providing written responses to questions of such clear public concern - questions all the more relevant since new Flock camera hacking incidents have come to light," the lawmakers wrote.

In a statement provided Thursday, Flock denied only wanting to meet with lawmakers privately and said it was willing to cooperate.

"Flock has repeatedly offered to meet with the delegates to answer any outstanding questions, following nearly two hours of public testimony and (10) pages of detailed written responses already provided to the committee," said Flock spokesperson Paris Lewbel. "Those offers were intended to provide additional information and clarification, not replace written responses. We remain ready to engage with lawmakers, provide additional information, and address any questions they may still have."

Kevin Kane, the director of government affairs for Flock Safety, told lawmakers during the Aug. 9 legislative interim meeting that data collected through its technology is owned completely by its customers, such as law enforcement, homeowners' associations and businesses. He also said the data collected is not sold, and data-sharing agreements are between law enforcement agencies themselves and must be opted into.

Following that meeting, Phillips, Leavitt and Browning sent a letter to Flock dated Aug. 14 seeking answers by Sept. 1 to 19 questions about security incidents and unauthorized access of Flock systems, the scope of surveillance and data sharing, the accuracy of ALPRs and rate of false positives, internal oversight and employee access controls, and data governance and infrastructure.

"We are legislators who have strong relationships with law enforcement in our communities and understand that robust policing is essential to keeping the public safe," the lawmakers wrote. "We recognize the need for tools to aid in difficult law enforcement challenges like finding missing persons and stopping drug traffickers - the latter particularly relevant here in West Virginia, which has had the highest annual opioid and drug overdose deaths for 15 consecutive years. Yet state legislatures also have the responsibility to adopt responsible safeguards for their state."

The Aug. 14 letter honed down on testimony Kane offered days before stating that two-factor authorization to access Flock systems had been in place during his three years at the company as an option and made mandatory in the last year, despite a blog post by Haley, the chief legal officer, on Aug. 13 stating the two-factor authorization had only been offered by Flock since the beginning of August.

"It was already concerning to see Mr. Kane shift his testimony from implying two-factor authentication had been required for as long as three years to testifying it was adopted 'within the last year,'" the lawmakers wrote. "Now, your blog post has revealed multi-factor authentication was made mandatory literally only days before our hearing."

In a Sept. 1 letter, Haley submitted responses to the committee's written questions and said the questions of Kane during the interim meeting about two-factor authentication were unclear.

"There is a meaningful difference between a security control being available, being standard practice, and being mandatory," Haley wrote. "At the customer level, two-factor began as a defaulted-on optional feature; optional because some agencies informed us that they lacked the technical capacity to support it. It was then subsequently made mandatory, as technological options expanded, as Mr. Kane described. Our recent announcement reflects the final step in that rollout."

In a Sept. 3 letter to Haley, Phillips, Leavitt, Browning and Lucas said they were dissatisfied with Flock's response to its written questions, which they said was either incomplete or unclear, setting a new deadline of Sept. 17 to further answer their questions. Instead, Haley sent a letter to the lawmakers on Sept. 16 offering to have Flock meet with lawmakers.

"We value the extensive dialogue we have shared with you and your colleagues," he wrote. "While we felt our prior correspondence addressed the questions posed, it is evident from your most recent correspondence that those answers were not satisfactory. To avoid any further misunderstandings, we believe it would be beneficial to meet with you again. We would welcome the opportunity to sit down together to discuss your remaining questions and review our answers directly."

Other companies offer ALPR systems, such as Motorola Solutions and Axon. But Flock has come under scrutiny due to recent contracts by in-state law enforcement. Most recently, Monongalia County contracted with Flock Safety for 20 ALPR cameras for the sheriff's department, while the City of Huntington signed a five-year contract with Flock for more than 40 ALPR cameras, live video cameras, gunshot detectors and other technology for $2.1 million.

Civil rights groups and civil libertarian groups, including the ACLU and the Institute for Justice, have raised concerns about the use of ALPRs and other AI-assisted surveillance for mass tracking of citizens, the possible misuse of data and lack of transparency and public accountability.

The Institute for Justice, a civil liberties law firm, maintains a database detailing more than 100 incidents of alleged abuse of ALPR systems by law enforcement for stalking of romantic partners, wrongful stops and non-law enforcement use.