West Virginia state lawmakers are pressing Flock Safety, the nation’s largest maker of automated license plate readers, for more answers while accusing the firm of a “history of providing inaccurate information” to other state and local governments.
An exchange of letters between three Republicans in the state House of Delegates and Flock’s top lawyer was shared with the Daily Signal.
Flock Chief Legal Officer Dan Haley responded, “Flock always endeavors to give full, complete and truthful answers to the public and the officials who represent them.”
The GOP lawmakers sent their most recent letter Sept. 3, giving Flock a deadline of Sept. 17 to respond or face a subpoena. Haley suggested another meeting.
“While we felt our prior correspondence addressed the questions posed, it is evident from your most recent correspondence that those answers were not satisfactory,” Haley wrote. “To avoid any further misunderstandings, we believe it would be beneficial to meet with you again. “
The Georgia-based company was founded in 2017 and is valued at more than $8 billion. Proponents say the cameras are a strong crime-fighting tool. But critics in various states such as California, Texas, Virgnia, Georgia, and Florida have raised concerns about surveillance.
On Aug. 9, Flock Director of Government Affairs Kevin Kane told the West Virginia House Joint Standing Committee on Government Organization that Flock cameras were never hacked and that the data had two-step verification “for a long time.”
Five days later, three House Republican delegates questioned the answers in a letter to Flock CEO Garrett Langley, referencing a blog post on the company website that said, “At the beginning of this month, we also made multi-factor authentication (MFA) mandatory for anyone logging into Flock, increasing our security standards for all customers.”
The “announcement contradicts sworn testimony” from Kane, according to the letter to the CEO from state Delegates Patrick Lucas, Tristan Leavitt and Ryan Browning.
Two-step verification has become a major legislative flashpoint because it is perceived as a defense against unauthorized access to data and against police abuse of the mass-surveillance network. The matter has drawn bipartisan concern.
In November, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., wrote a letter to the Federal Trade Commission requesting an investigation into Flock Safety, claiming it did not require local police using its cameras to use multi-factor authentication to log into the system.
“This company should be as transparent as possible with the public and with these entities they have contracts with,” Leavitt told the Daily Signal. “They keep giving bad information in setting after setting, and people are losing a lot of trust for Flock.”
The transparency is important as technology develops, he said.
“In the technological evolution, what Flock could do two years ago isn’t close to what they can do now,” Leavitt said. “What they can do now, they will do a lot more in the future.”
A Flock spokesperson said the company will continue to work with the lawmakers.
“Flock has addressed the questions raised by West Virginia lawmakers and is offering to meet with them again,” a Flock spokesperson told the Daily Signal in a statement. “We welcome the opportunity to walk through our responses directly, provide any necessary context, and clarify any remaining questions or misunderstandings. We take the legislature’s questions seriously and remain committed to engaging constructively and providing clear, accurate information.”
As recounted in the letter to the CEO, during the hearing, Browning asked, “Do you guys require two-factor authentication to log into the system?”
Kane replied, “Yes,” and Browning followed, “Is that recent?”
“It’s been a standard practice for a long time. I’m not sure exactly how long,” Kane replied.
During that same August hearing, as the letter recounts, Leavitt followed, “There’s been a lot of reporting that two-factor authentication is not required by the local departments. You say you guys have used two-factor authentication for a long time.”
Kane eventually replied, “It has always been an optional feature and we’ve made that mandatory. I think that’s been done within the last year.”
Haley, the Flock attorney, contends that wasn’t a contradiction from the later announcement because two-factor authentication “began as a defaulted-on optional feature” and “then subsequently made mandatory.”
Haley added, “There is a meaningful difference between a security control being available, being standard practice and being mandatory.”
The initial August letter to the CEO asserts it’s “not the first time government officials have felt misled by Flock Safety.” The letter provides examples.
On April 21, a Flock Safety representative said license plate readers did not create heat maps to track vehicles. The Oshkosh, Wisconsin, City Council renewed a contract upon that reassurance. Less than 24 hours later, law enforcement in that city suggested that was incorrect, and the City Council voted to rescind its decision.
On March 4, Kane reportedly testified before the Connecticut state legislature’s Joint General Law Committee that Flock has never had a data-sharing request come in from a federal agency. However, an August 2025 blog post said, “we have engaged in limited pilots with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), to assist those agencies in combatting human trafficking and fentanyl distribution.”
Haley also addressed some of these issues in a Sept. 1 letter to the lawmakers.
“In short, a limited, non-contractual pilot with access to the opt-in sharing networks within the Flock platform to assist with human-trafficking and fentanyl interdiction is a different arrangement from a contractual data-sharing relationship to funnel data to federal entities or in response to legal process,” the Haley letter says.
In August 2025, Flock Safety reportedly told Loveland, Colorado, Police Chief Tim Doran that federal agencies did not have access to Loveland’s cameras. But after a news station reported otherwise, the company said it “inadvertently provided inaccurate information.”
The three GOP West Virginia lawmakers were not appeased by the response in a Sept. 3 letter and asked for additional information, with a Sept. 17 deadline.
Leavitt said the legislature will decide on “guardrails” for the Flock cameras during the regular session early next year.
