Delegate Tristan Leavitt, a Kanawha County Republican, sat at his desk in August in the House Chambers, microphone in hand.
At the lectern stood Kevin Kane, a lobbyist for Flock Safety.
The delegate, a lawyer and former congressional investigator, grilled Kane about the company’s increasingly controversial practices.
Leavitt asked about internal audits and about hacks into the nationwide network of automated license plate readers, which capture license plates and other identifiable portions of vehicles.
He asked on what basis Flock said, as it has in its marketing materials, its system has a 99% accuracy rate reading license plates.
“Our security team has done a lot of investigations based on surveys and things like that with customers to help provide us some insight in terms of overall accuracy and use and efficacy,” Kane said.
Leavitt paused. So, he clarified, the accuracy rate was based on customer surveys and not actual performance data from Flock’s machines?
Kane didn’t answer. Instead, he offered to share more details with Leavitt in the privacy of the lawmaker’s office.
Flock has sidestepped questions about its data security and practices posed by lawmakers, even as agencies across the state have adopted and are using the surveillance technology on a daily basis. Communities from Huntington to Monongalia County have either adopted or contemplated Flock cameras, sparking outcry from citizens with privacy concerns.
But as lawmakers are looking into legislative measures to regulate the technology’s use, Flock is not giving them much information to work with.
A few days after the August hearing, Leavitt and fellow Dels. Patrick Lucas, R-Cabell, Chris Phillips, R-Upshur, and Ryan Brown, R-Wayne, sent a letter to Flock Safety, asking for details about incidents of false positives, hacking, data sharing and audits of the system to prepare for a follow-up meeting.
On Sept. 1, Flock replied to clear up any “misimpressions” from Kane’s presentation, but failed to answer pointed questions like how many false positives — where a car is flagged as being involved in a crime when it was not — it had in 2025.
Instead, the company sent the number of false positives in July 2026.
Some independent reports show outsiders have accessed the camera feeds in other places where the cameras are in use.
In answer to Leavitt’s questions about incidents of hacking, Flock clarified the difference between hacking and exposing the feed to the Internet.
“We recognize the distinction can be read as fine parsing to those who do not work with these systems daily. It is not offered to evade the question; it is offered because the question is technical and deserves a technically precise answer,” Flock wrote in its letter.
Leavitt said so far, the response hasn’t provided much. “Flock can continue to make their case that ‘hey, we think this is a good product, we think it’s the best product around,’ but they need to show us the data that is coming with it, and they have failed to do so so far,” Leavitt said.
Lawmakers replied days later, reiterating questions about accuracy and security that Flock didn’t answer.
“We appreciate the opportunity to correct the misimpression, reflected in your response, that a two-page exercise in corporate reframing constitutes an answer to nineteen specific information and document requests,” lawmakers wrote.
House lawmakers warned the company that they may resort to a subpoena to get information regarding the company’s network of automated license plate readers.
National news media have reported incidents of misidentified cars, including one woman who was wrongfully accused and arrested in Florida in a fatal hit-and-run accident.
One of the few scientific studies of Flock cameras by a third-party is a working paper authored by two professors at the University of South Carolina, which found moderate reductions in car theft and increases in car theft arrests.
“Our study helps identify where measurable benefits appear to exist, but it does not resolve the broader privacy and governance tradeoff. That is ultimately a political and community decision that science alone cannot answer,” said Scott Mourtgos, a professor in criminology at the University of South Carolina and an author of the study.
West Virginia law enforcement agencies adopt Flock
Despite concerns raised by citizens and a lack of hard data, at least 10 agencies have embraced the technology in West Virginia. Sheriff Nelson Croft, of the Ohio County Sheriff’s Office, said Flock helped crack a case of a serial flasher. Chief Steve Shine, of the Fairmont Police Department, said it assisted in a murder investigation that resulted in arrests.
Shine said he understands the concerns raised about privacy.
“I like to think of myself as a constitutionalist too, and I do understand totally the Fourth Amendment arguments that are brought up with it,” he said.
But the Fairmont Police Department hasn’t tested the system for accuracy. So far, Deputy Chief Jack Frost said they haven’t had any mistaken traffic stops.
Croft, whose department uses six license plate readers, said the privacy issues are unfounded.
“I tell people I can get more information with a subpoena for your cell phone records than I can get with my Flock cameras,” he said.
Leavitt says lawmakers will consider Flock guardrails in January
West Virginia doesn’t have laws regulating the usage of these cameras. Instead, it’s up to a patchwork of local police department policies.
“This information will be helpful to us in trying to figure out the guardrails and legislation that we want to run in January,” Leavitt said.
Flock, through Elsa Castro, a spokesperson, said it is cooperating with lawmakers.
“We take the Legislature’s questions seriously and remain committed to engaging constructively and providing clear, accurate information.”
Flock also provided a letter sent to lawmakers that again did not answer the questions. Company representatives said they would be willing to meet with lawmakers.
“Flock has had three opportunities to fully answer our questions and has failed,” Leavitt said. “A damage-control session behind closed doors is no substitute for providing on-the-record response to questions of extremely significant public concern. Unless Flock wants to receive a subpoena, they had better produce answers fast.”
