Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and Merkley unveil Ban Flock Act to block federal use of license-plate cameras

Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Jeff Merkley on Friday 2 October unveiled the Ban Flock Act, legislation aimed at ending federal use of automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) and cutting federal money to the state and local governments that use them.

The bill would prohibit the federal government from using ALPRs or accessing the information they collect, stop federal grant funding flowing to state or local governments that use the technology or contract with ALPR companies, and give Americans the right to sue the federal government for violations of their rights through ALPR use.

“We cannot allow America to become a surveillance state where a handful of AI oligarchs profit by giving the government the power to track our every movement,” Sanders said.

“Big Tech companies like Flock Safety have built a mass surveillance system to harvest Americans’ private and personal data without their consent,” Ocasio-Cortez added. Merkley said the right to privacy “includes the freedom to move around your community without every move being monitored.”

Flock Safety is the largest US ALPR vendor, with more than 120,000 cameras that scan and record 20 billion vehicles every month, according to Sanders’s office. The release cited cases where Flock shared state information with federal immigration officials, where officers used plate readers to track romantic partners without consent, and where data was pulled to investigate activists at protests against ICE raids and in support of Palestinian rights.

So far this year, at least 56 municipalities have deactivated, cancelled or rejected contracts with Flock. The bill arrives as bipartisan concern over the technology grows: a Senate subcommittee chaired by Josh Hawley held a hearing on AI surveillance cameras on 23 September, and Republican lawmakers Thomas Massie and Eric Burlison have introduced a competing Flock-Off Act.