Flock Safety, the surveillance technology company increasingly under scrutiny from lawmakers from both parties, civil liberties advocates and citizens across the US, announced Thursday that it is making changes to its platform intended to quell privacy concerns and address documented abuses of its system by some members of law enforcement.

The company operates a vast nationwide network of automated cameras that record the licence plate numbers and other characteristics of all passing vehicles every day. Thousands of law enforcement agencies in 49 states can search and share Flock’s data across jurisdictions to aid their investigations.

Police have credited the technology as an important crime-fighting innovation that has helped locate missing people and track suspects in violent crimes. But some critics say its pervasiveness amounts to unconstitutional warrantless mass surveillance. Dozens of cities and agencies have mixed their relationships with Flock amid concerns that the data can be accessed for immigration enforcement or used in unauthorised tracking, after a flurry of examples surfaced of law enforcement officers misusing the technology for personal searches.