ALEXANDRIA, VA – Alexandria's Flock camera page is now showing two new categories of information, days after the city mayor requested that information be made public, according to a new report.
The Alexandria Brief reports that the city's public license plate reader page now shows the number of searches run over the past 30 days, and the full list of law enforcement agencies allowed to search the city's cameras.
Almost all appear to be Virginia state or local law enforcement bodies, as well as the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, college campus police, the Norfolk Housing Authority and the Department of Wildlife Resources.
Virginia law does not allow Flock camera data to be shared across state lines without a warrant, subpoena or court order.
The page also shows the total number of cameras (61) and how long data is said to be retained in the Flock system (21 days). The page highlights two reported Flock "success stories," both from 2023.
Mayor Alyia Gaskins recently said she'd asked Police Chief Tarrick McGuire and City Manager James Parajon to publish that information as well as camera locations, according to the Alexandria Brief, as well as where the cameras are, which is still not included on the page.
Hundreds of Flock cameras are deployed across Northern Virginia. Residents can search Have I Been Flocked by state and police jurisdiction to review Flock audit logs obtained through public records requests. Some records can include how often users may see how often an agency searched the system, the reasons officers gave and whether a particular license plate appeared in the logs.
The American Civil Liberties Union says Flock cameras frequently misread license plates and that less than 1% of cars scanned are involved in a crime. The ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Cato Institute and the Electronic Privacy Foundation have all joined a case in Virginia challenging the legality of Flock camera data capture, saying the warrantless collection of data about cars' movements violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.
Read more from the Alexandria Brief here.
More Flock cameras are coming to Northern Virginia. Read about them here.
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