The Charlottesville City Council decided in a meeting Dec. 15 to discontinue its contract with Flock Safety — a company which provides Automatic License Plate Reader surveillance cameras to localities — after a one-year pilot program expired and concerns arose around data protection and camera misuse. 10 different cameras were installed across Charlottesville in late 2024, including one on the Corner at the intersection of University Avenue and 14th Street.
City officials initially introduced the Flock Safety pilot in 2024 after extensive vetting and community meetings, with police saying the cameras would help alert officers in real time when stolen vehicles, missing persons or other vehicles of interest entered the city — effectively giving investigators a tool to support criminal investigations and public safety efforts.
Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders said at the meeting that City Council’s decision was driven by concerns over data protection, potential misuse and limits on local control of the system, even though the cameras have had success in locating suspects.
“Council has received a performance briefing and learned of the positive results in solving cases,” Sanders said. “But because of ongoing concerns … [including] an inability to guarantee our local parameters or protect information … Council has requested that we not move forward with this system.”
These cameras have recently been credited with locating the suspect in the Brown University shooting Dec. 13.
Nationally, Flock Safety’s systems are widely used by police departments and local governments as tools to help recover stolen vehicles and support criminal investigations. The technology has also been adopted in some university settings for campus security, though its use has drawn scrutiny. In October, a privacy complaint was filed against the University of Arizona alleging the university failed to properly disclose its use of Flock cameras and that license plate data was collected and shared.
The Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO found in September that law enforcement conducted nearly 3,000 inquiries into Virginia’s Flock cameras between June 2024 and June 2025 in relation to immigration enforcement.
In May, Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed a bill into law to go into effect in July stating that ALPR data can only be utilized for a criminal investigation where there is reasonable suspicion of a crime, as part of an active investigation involving a missing or endangered person or for receiving alerts regarding such persons, stolen vehicles or stolen license plates. The bill goes on to state that a law enforcement agency shall not search or download Flock system data unless such data is related to at least one of the three purposes listed.
According to a press release from Flock Safety on Oct. 22 in response to reports of cameras being used for immigration enforcement, local police departments using Flock cameras have sole discretion on if they wish to collaborate with federal agencies. According to the release, Flock does not automatically share data with federal agencies.
“Local public safety agencies collaborate with federal agencies on a wide variety of serious crimes, including human and narcotics trafficking and multi-jurisdictional cases. If agencies choose to collaborate with federal agencies, that is wholly up to them,” the release read.
Charlottesville City Council Member Michael Payne told The Cavalier Daily in an email statement that he opposed these cameras out of concern that Flock’s technology creates a privately controlled, nationwide surveillance network capable of tracking vehicle movements across jurisdictions.
“Such a dataset can be connected with other data points and create a nationwide, privately owned system of mass surveillance,” Payne said. “Once such capabilities exist, threats to civil liberties and privacy become inevitable.”
Payne also pointed to incidents that have already occurred outside of the Commonwealth, such as the technology being used to track women who have gone to abortion clinics in states that abortion has been outlawed, targeting people for deportation and the technology being misused to track the location of partners in danger of domestic violence.
The University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights determined in a report released Oct. 21 that Flock surveillance systems are being used by U.S. Border Patrol through what the report described as “back door access.” The report found this access occurred in jurisdictions that did not explicitly grant Border Patrol permission to search their systems. The report similarly brings up the concerns cited by Payne, saying that this form of surveillance could be used to criminalize those seeking gender affirming healthcare or access to reproductive healthcare.
Flock disputed the report's conclusions in a press release issued the following day, arguing that the technology is primarily used to assist law enforcement in solving crimes and that concerns about misuse are speculative.
“These are slippery slope arguments that are not in line with the thousands of use cases of Flock technology being used to solve violent and property crime every week,” the release read. “We are unaware of any credible case of Flock technology being used to prosecute a woman for reproductive healthcare or anyone for gender affirming healthcare.”
Flock said that they have introduced “keyword filters” — system-level controls that prevent users from searching license plate data using terms related to immigration or reproductive healthcare — in states where such searches are prohibited by law.
Payne said that the removal of these cameras will not have a substantial effect on how the Charlottesville Police Department or University Police would respond after or during an active attack, noting that agencies rely on established coordination protocols rather than license plate reader data during emergencies.
“In the absence of Flock cameras, the agencies would respond to an active threat as they did before Flock cameras existed,” Payne said. “Flock cameras would not be used during an active threat, but rather would be utilized during investigations.”
The Cavalier Daily reached out to the University asking if this decision has sparked any policy changes or discussions, to which they declined to comment.
Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders said at the Dec. 15 council meeting that the city will be holding a work session in 2026 to look at alternatives to Flock.
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