Days after a representative from Sen. Josh Hawley’s office updated local officials in Warrenton on efforts to establish closer oversight of AI-powered license plate cameras, the Missouri Republican announced Wednesday, Sept. 30, that he will introduce the Stop Flock Abuse Act.
Jeremy Lloyd, director of community initiatives for Sen. Hawley’s office, spoke at the Sept. 28 meeting of the Boonslick Regional Planning Commission. He noted that Hawley has recently made it a priority to put in place safeguards for automated license plate reader (ALPR) camera networks operated by companies such as Flock Safety.
“One of the big things going on in our office right now is that the senator has an investigation into AI-powered camera networks around the country, specifically Flock cameras and other networks, and he’s concerned with the number and the pervasiveness of these networks and wants to make sure that Americans’ privacy is still maintained,” Lloyd said.
“So he’s looking into them and receiving information back from these companies, wanting to make sure, No. 1, that law enforcement does have the tools that they need to go out and catch the bad guys, but at the same time making sure that Americans are not giving up their privacy when they’re taking their kids to school, or going to church, or other things like that,” he added, “because currently, as it stands, the only safety mechanism is the mechanism that these companies have set on their own.”
For more than a decade, use of ALPR cameras has been becoming increasingly widespread nationwide. They have long been opposed by privacy advocacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation due to their potential for abuse as a surveillance tool against law-abiding citizens.
More recently, a backlash has been building specifically against ALPR company Flock Safety, which has grown to operate the largest network of the cameras in recent years, promoting its product as different from previous ALPRs due to its use of artificial intelligence.
In August, the St. Charles County Police Department announced it would discontinue use of Flock ALPRs after a civilian employee abused data from the camera system. Shortly afterward, Hawley announced he was investigating the company’s surveillance network, citing the St. Charles County case.
On Sept. 16, Gov. Mike Kehoe also signed an executive order “establishing strict safeguards” over use of ALPRs, according to a news release from his office.
“Protecting citizens also means protecting their constitutional rights,” Kehoe said in a statement. “The unchecked collection and indefinite storage of location data belonging to law-abiding citizens raises substantial, valid constitutional and privacy concerns. The government should not be building a permanent record of where law-abiding Missourians go, who they visit, or how they live their daily lives. This executive order is the first step in creating safeguards against abuse of this data, while still understanding the benefits of these vital public safety tools for law enforcement.”
Like many other communities across the country, Warren County cities have installed Flock cameras in recent years. The Wright City Police Department has a “Flock Safety Transparency Portal” on its website, while Warrenton similarly has a page for frequently asked questions about the Flock ALPRs.
Wright City has two Flock cameras, according to its transparency portal. The Warrenton Flock FAQ page does not state a number of cameras, but according to Warrenton Police Lt. Jason Hanner, the city has four, with money currently in its budget to buy two more.
Of those four, only three are currently operational, Hanner added. “People keep on taking them down and running into them,” he said. He clarified that by “taking them down” he meant accidentally hitting the cameras with their vehicles, rather than vandalizing them, as has happened in some other places.
Warrenton has had Flock cameras since May 2025, Hanner said.
“I know nobody likes them right now, it’s a hot topic,” he said of the controversy surrounding the ALPRs. He added, however, that he is completely in favor of the cameras, as they are a valuable tool and one of the first ones that police turn to for many investigations.
ALPR camera data has been used in recent Warren County criminal investigations, including a murder case where the suspect was apprehended in Wright City as well as a Warrenton vehicle tampering case filed last month.
Besides the cameras in Warrenton and Wright City, other ALPRs are located just over the county line from Warren County, including one in Foristell and two in Jonesburg, according to a map on the website deflock.org.
Prior to installing its Flock cameras, in 2022 Wright City aldermen approved a set of transparency requirements for the ALPRs. These included that the police chief must immediately inform aldermen upon learning of any improper use of camera data, as well as present an annual review of how the data is being used and any complaints or concerns. Requirements approved in 2022 also included mandating the creation of the online transparency portal.
Flock camera data is retained for 30 days in Wright City, according to the transparency portal, which also provides various statistics about that data. As of Oct. 1, Wright City police had conducted 25 searches of Flock data in the past 30 days, during which time there had been 316 “hotlist hits” out of a total of 35,974 vehicles detected.
