Misuse of the widely deployed Flock Safety cameras — artificial intelligence-powered license plate readers — has brought the technology bad press, though supporters say it is an invaluable tool for law enforcement.

The issue drew renewed attention after the arrest of a Kentucky police officer accused of misusing the cameras to track his ex-girlfriend more than 2,000 times.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., wrote on social media that the surveillance was carried out with “No warrant. No probable cause.”

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who caucuses with Democrats, also called for an end to “AI MASS SURVEILLANCE,” specifically mentioning Flock Safety, one of the more well-known companies behind such license plate readers. The systems can help create searchable databases for law enforcement.

“It’s picking up all sorts of information unrelated to any crime, and then ideally, how it was supposed to work is then if you’re looking for a specific license plate related to a crime, you would make the match,” said Juliette Kayyem, a former Department of Homeland Security official.

Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed also recently highlighted the proliferation of the technology as part of his campaign.

“Do you ever feel like you’re stuck in a cage being watched?” El-Sayed said.

Responding to bipartisan concerns over the technology, a spokesperson for Flock Safety told Spectrum News in a statement that it “supports legislation that creates guardrails for how license plate recognition data is used and shared.”

Earlier this month, in the wake of several incidents in which misuse of data gathered by its cameras was brought to light, Flock said it was making changes to its platform to address privacy concerns and document abuses of its system.

That is not going far enough for Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who sent the company a letter citing a “woeful lack of safeguards” with the technology and raising questions about what the company does with the data it collects.

Hawley said that while he does “want law enforcement to have tools to catch offenders and keep the public safe,” he is still launching an investigation into the company and wants it to provide requested documents no later than Sept. 8.

A Flock spokesperson said the company received Hawley’s letter and looks forward to working with the senator to “provide additional context about how our technology works.”

Flock Safety has argued that its tool has many benefits, saying its cameras have aided roughly 1 million police investigations.