CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. – Automated license plate readers are showing up in more communities across Virginia, and they’re generating real questions from residents about privacy. Christiansburg Police Chief Chris Ramsey sat down with 10 News to clear up how the technology actually works — and what officers cannot do with it.
What ‘Flock cameras’ actually means
The term “Flock camera” has become a catchall phrase that doesn’t always mean what people think it does, Ramsey said.
“Flock has become a generic term, kind of like Kleenex or Band-Aid,” Ramsey said. “Everybody just refers to any kind of camera now as a Flock camera.”
Flock Safety is a company that manufactures several types of surveillance cameras, including ALPRs. Private businesses — including retailers like Walmart and Lowe’s — can purchase and install their own Flock cameras and join the network independently, Ramsey said. Law enforcement cannot access those privately owned cameras without permission.
The Christiansburg Police Department worked with the company to identify camera placement that would have the greatest impact on public safety. Ramsey said coverage near schools was a top priority. The department has no plans to add gunshot detection technology, he said.
How officers can — and cannot — use the data
Each camera captures an image of a license plate and logs the time it passed. No vehicle registration information is automatically connected to that image, and officers cannot freely browse the system.
“They have to have a criminal case number and a criminal offense to enter into the system before they can search it,” Ramsey said. “So they already have to be working on a case before they can access the data.”
That requirement is designed to prevent the kind of broad surveillance some residents fear, Ramsey said.
“It’s not just a mass surveillance of trying to figure out who’s passing this camera six times a day or anything like that,” he said.
Data retention and sharing restrictions
Virginia law limits how long ALPR data can be kept. Ramsey said the data must be purged after 21 days unless it becomes part of an active criminal investigation. If a specific license plate capture is connected to a case, that record moves into the criminal investigative file and can be retained for the duration of the case.
State law also restricts how the data can be shared.
“Our data that we capture anywhere in the state of Virginia can’t be used for immigration enforcement,” Ramsey said. “We can’t share it outside the state of Virginia. We can’t share it with federal agencies.”
A staffing solution in a tight labor market
Ramsey framed the technology as a practical response to a workforce problem facing departments across the country.
“Law enforcement as a profession is facing a nationwide shortage in staffing,” he said. “We can do a search in 30 seconds and find some information through the Flock ALPR system that if we were using a traditional camera or something like that, it would take hours to do.”