FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday praised Flock cameras as being a useful tool for federal investigators, touting their use to help track down criminals.
The prolific use of Flock cameras by private businesses, police departments, local districts, and states nationwide to automatically record the license plates of all passing vehicles has sparked scrutiny in recent months, due to concerns that privacy and constitutional rights are being violated. Private individuals or police agencies can choose to share the data across state lines with other law enforcement departments, as well as government agencies, including the FBI.
After President Donald Trump over the weekend endorsed Flock cameras, Patel was pressed on the automated license plate recognition debate during an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, when Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said there has been a “rush to judgment” on their use and asked the FBI director to explain how they have helped law enforcement. In response, Patel said they’ve been essential to tracking down child predators while also noting ALPRs were used to find the suspect in the deadly Brown University school shooting last year.
“The cameras weren’t great up there in Brown University,” Patel told Cornyn. “We weren’t able to get any facial recognition on the individual, but what we were able to get based on the Flock camera was a license plate. We were able to then trace that license plate to the individual and his scheme, and ultimately find that individual.”
Patel also noted ALPR footage has been critical for operations finding people who sexually abuse or otherwise harm children, saying the FBI works with locals and officials in specific investigations to access their cameras. The FBI director said the federal agency partners with such officials and companies to access camera footage “on a case-by-case basis and not a rolling access basis.”
“Private companies have, and private municipalities and towns put up cameras around traffic circles and the neighborhoods and the like. They collect information, not the FBI, where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, basically publicly available information,” Patel said.
“The best … examples are on chasing down child predators. We have continuously utilized this when people kidnap children and cross state lines. Then we go to these LPR leaders and say, ‘Hey, we have a picture of this car. We don’t have any information on it. Can you help us out into where it went?’ And we have saved children over and over again from these child predators. We’ve retrieved these victims,” he added in remarks to Cornyn. “We’re able to track those with this. We have to use it lawfully, but we, the FBI, don’t continue to access that on a rolling basis.”
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Patel’s comments come after Trump noted there are concerns about Flock cameras being an “infringement” on rights, but the president said he “liked” them.
“I sort of like them because of that, because of law enforcement,” he told reporters. “I like them.”