Charlottesville Police Department to present data from Flock pilot

Charlottesville’s Police Department divides the city into three districts and all of them will soon hold a community meeting to review the results of a one-year pilot of a proprietary system that scans license plates looking for criminal activity.

Last year, CPD began using Flock Safety’s system but Council had concerns about how the data would be shared with federal officials.

“Under CPD policy, data is retained for only seven days, and Charlottesville remains the only jurisdiction in Virginia that does not share its ALPR system or data with any agency outside the city,” reads an information release sent out at 2:52 p.m. this afternoon.

The current director of the Police Civilian Oversight Board has been part of an audit of the results according to CPD’s policies.

“These reviews did not identify any misuse or violations of General Order 427 by CPD personnel, nor has any trend in usage been observed that would indicate abnormalities or outliers in the data,” the release quotes James Walker.

Now the public will have a chance to ask questions at the three meetings.

• South District: October 7, 2025 — 6:00 p.m., Fifeville Community Meeting, Tonsler Park Community Center
• North District: October 9, 2025 — 7:00 p.m., Rose Hill Community Meeting, 1107 Forest Street
• Central District: October 30, 2025 — 6:00 p.m., Friends of Downtown Community Meeting, City Space

Previous coverage:

• Charlottesville police considering use of license plate recognition system, September 19, 2023
• Police Chief Kochis gives an update on FLOCK license plate readers, February 7, 2025
• Charlottesville Police have paused use of Peregrine software, not sharing Flock data, June 15, 2025
• Report: Flock cameras in Virginia have been used for immigration enforcement, July 4, 2025

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