I am writing as a concerned constituent to demand immediate legislative oversight regarding the potential use of private dashcam data by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its contractors. Recent reporting indicates that Flock, a surveillance company, is exploring a partnership with Nexar, a consumer dashcam provider that collects trillions of images from hundreds of thousands of private vehicles across the United States (404 Media).
This development raises alarming civil liberties and privacy concerns. Flock’s business model already provides law enforcement agencies, including DHS, with access to extensive license plate reader (ALPR) data. Integrating this with Nexar’s mobile dashcams could transform millions of personal vehicles into “always-on,” government-accessible surveillance tools, capturing precise locations, road activity, and other sensitive information from ordinary citizens who are not suspected of any wrongdoing.
The scale of this data collection is staggering. Nexar reports that its dashcams collectively drive 150 million miles per month, generating trillions of images. While some data is public-facing and anonymized, the potential for integration with Flock’s law enforcement clients—including Customs and Border Protection and local agencies performing ICE lookups—poses an unprecedented risk to privacy. Without clear legal boundaries, Americans’ daily movements could be tracked and analyzed without consent, effectively eroding the expectation of personal privacy in public spaces.
I urge Congress to take swift action to:
1. Establish strict limits on DHS and law enforcement access to private dashcam data, ensuring it cannot be collected or used without explicit, informed consent from vehicle owners.
2. Mandate transparency and accountability in any public-private partnerships that involve personal surveillance data.
3. Create robust oversight mechanisms to monitor how this data is collected, stored, shared, and utilized, with independent audits to prevent misuse.
Americans purchase dashcams for personal safety, accident documentation, and rideshare protection—not to become unknowing participants in a massive government surveillance network. Legislative safeguards are urgently needed to protect privacy and civil liberties before such surveillance is normalized.
First sent on August 31 by Coleman
