Charlottesville ends use of Flock system

The Charlottesville Police Department has stopped all participation in a nationwide surveillance system used by law enforcement to track potential suspects across multiple jurisdictions. Ten cameras operated by the firm Flock were set up in the fall of 2023 as part of a one-year pilot program.

“Council has requested that we not move forward with this system,” said City Manager Sam Sanders at the December 15 City Council meeting. “So that pilot has now ended, the cameras are being removed and we will continue to do our responsible work just without the use of automatic license plate readers.”

Earlier this year, CPD agreed to not share data with other law enforcement agencies out of a concern information would be used by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of a federal push to deport people. Council also previously asked that CPD not use a program called Peregrine to sift through data.

“There has been a request for a technology work session so that we can dig into how systems like this and other things are becoming a part of the normal use in law enforcement activity around the country,” Sanders said.

Charlottesville’s Flock website listed the locations of ten cameras. That’s not the case in other parts of Virginia where camera placements were only revealed through Freedom of Information Act requests as reported in the Virginia Pilot (paywall) and Cardinal News.

Sanders also announced there will be another work session on January 20 to review potential changes to rules related to housing complexes for students.

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