A Williamsburg resident in March asked the police department at the College of William & Mary how data collected by the school’s Flock Safety surveillance system is shared.
Police Chief Don Butler asked Flock for the answer, according to records obtained by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO. “I’m trying to be transparent with some folks who would rather we didn’t have Flock cameras,” Butler wrote to the company, “and want to make sure I tell them correctly.”
Flock Safety vice president Chris Colwell replied several days later with a list of talking points, each one with a supposed question and scripted answer: “Has Flock been ‘breached’ and why do I keep hearing that it has? No. The recent concerns agencies are hearing are not the result of a successful hack or compromise of Flock’s platform or cloud environment.”
Colwell wrote that “having simple, ready-to-share language is often just as important as the underlying controls.”
The response did not directly address Butler’s question.
Colwell instructed Butler to “forward this email as-is” or “copy and paste” into a memo to send to residents, according to records obtained by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO.
William & Mary spokesperson Nathan Warters said the exchange was standard. “Sometimes we lean on the specialized knowledge of Flock’s experts to accurately answer questions pertaining specifically to the company’s technology,” he said. The information is then shared with the public.
The email exchange was revealed in the thousands of public documents obtained by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO from Norfolk, Alexandria, Mecklenburg and Fairfax counties. VCIJ’s requests sought correspondence and materials related to the operation of Flock cameras, sent by residents to public officials or police departments, or exchanged between officials and residents.
A VCIJ review of the documents shows city and county leaders in communities with Flock cameras frantically sought basic information about data security, sharing and privacy concerns as residents grew alarmed by Flock surveillance in their hometowns.
The correspondence reveals increasing pressure from citizens on city and county leaders to amend or cancel contracts with Flock.
Despite the widespread use of Flock cameras, local officials often had little knowledge of how data was collected, shared and stored. Sometimes, police departments did not fully understand the AI-powered system operated before the cameras were installed.
“The pattern we've seen in many places with new technology is that police go out and sign the contract with no city council vote on it or oversight by the mayor,” said attorney Michael Soyfer of the Institute for Justice, a privacy advocate. “Oftentimes, the department vetting is very minimal. It usually consists of reading the marketing materials that are delivered by Flock or any other vendor and talking to another police department that uses license plate readers.”
A Flock training manual for local officials to blunt public criticism
Residents across Virginia pressing for answers about Flock cameras tend to circle the same core concerns: who can access the data, how it may be misused, whether the system enables mass surveillance, and what it means for personal privacy. Privacy advocates argue the cameras collect enough information to track people’s movements in detail, creating a system vulnerable to abuse.
Those concerns have already played out in court. The Institute for Justice sued Norfolk in 2024, arguing that Flock’s continuous collection of vehicle movements amounts to a warrantless search and violates the Fourth Amendment. A federal judge rejected that claim in January.
Meanwhile, VCIJ’s 2025 reporting showed how data from small towns like Bridgewater were accessed by hundreds of agencies nationwide before Virginia banned out‑of‑state sharing. Vague or insufficient reasons cited by officers for searching the system also complicate oversight.
Misuse has also fueled scrutiny. Officers in multiple states, including Texas, Georgia, the Carolinas, Wisconsin and Florida, have been accused of abusing Flock data. One Florida officer used it to track an ex‑girlfriend, according to 404 Media. As these questions mount, Flock Safety has worked to shape public perception, providing Virginia law enforcement agencies with detailed scripts for responding to citizen and media concerns about privacy and potential misuse.
"Opponents have a very carefully scripted narrative. They come prepared. You should also have a carefully scripted presentation that addresses the concerns ahead of time." – Flock SafetyFlock Safety
One of Flock’s training documents obtained by VCIJ and first reported on by 404 Media, “How to Speak to City Councils About Public Safety Technology,” teaches law enforcement to “spend less time defending the technology’s capabilities” when the public asks if it constitutes mass surveillance.
“Don't avoid the concept of mass surveillance because you are not going to convince opponents that it's not.”
The company suggests a different approach. It asks law enforcement agencies to focus on relating the surveillance to “your local need, your local community, the effect it's going to have on quality of life and crime reduction.”
It said “public safety technology is no longer evaluated on performance alone” and that “councils and communities increasingly expect transparency, oversight and accountability alongside public safety outcomes.”
The Flock manual warned law enforcement agencies: “Opponents have a very carefully scripted narrative. They come prepared. You should also have a carefully scripted presentation that addresses the concerns ahead of time.”
In the document, Flock Safety’s Director of Public Trust and Technology, Max Weinstein, tells agencies to “compare technology investments against the costs of unresolved crime,” if they are asked whether the surveillance system is worth the investment. “A single recovered vehicle can often exceed the annual cost of a camera.”
A Flock Safety spokesperson, Holly Beilin, said the company had no comment.
Brad Lehmann, assistant professor of criminal justice at Virginia Commonwealth University, said Flock and other ALPR vendors are private businesses and may not be held to the same level of scrutiny as city leaders, even though they should.
Caption: Brad Lehmann, assistant professor of Criminal Justice, Virginia Commonwealth University. Photo: VCU
Lehmann, a former police officer, said many departments do not have the capacity to vet and learn a new technology before they start using it.
“I think that's very fair to say that police did not expect this much controversy over the technology,” he said. “They weren't thinking about the big-time mass surveillance-type human usage of a technology that is this powerful. I don't think any of us really completely thought about how big this was going to be.”
Elected leaders, police struggle to ease community doubts
In Bridgewater and Alexandria, community questions are forcing council members and law enforcement agencies to seek answers to unanticipated questions.
Alexandria Mayor Alyia Gaskin sought information about the city’s surveillance system and grew impatient when she was not getting answers fast enough from the Alexandria Police Department, according to records obtained by VCIJ. The system had been in place for two years when Gaskin, a new mayor, wanted to know more about data sharing and the number of cameras the city had.
In a June 2025 email to the city manager, Jim Parajon, Gaskin asked how many cameras the city had, if anyone outside of APD could retrieve the data from the cameras, or if agencies outside of Alexandria, including federal partners, could access the data from the city’s 67 Flock cameras.
“It is my understanding that my colleagues have also reached out requesting this information and not received an answer,” she said, asking for a response before the council’s recess five days later.
Months later, Gaskins was still dealing with how to respond to continued inquiries and concerns.
"They weren't thinking about the big-time mass surveillance-type human usage of a technology that is this powerful. I don't think any of us really completely thought about how big this was going to be." Lehmann
In January 2026, her office received multiple emails from residents calling on the city to cancel its Flock contract.
“In documented cases, some devices have been compromised through physical access alone, while others have been found broadcasting live video feeds on the open internet without authentication,” one resident said, and called for suspension of the operation of current cameras and termination of Alexandria’s contract with Flock.
Ten minutes after Gaskins read the resident’s complaint, Gaskins sent an email to a sergeant in the city’s Homeland Security Section, John Jones, requesting that he “provide the council with a response that can be shared with the public that outlines what we do and do not do.”
In Bridgewater, records show how town officials ignored inquiries from VCIJ when this news organization asked why the town’s Flock data was searched millions of times by outside agencies nationwide and by federal agencies for immigration enforcement.
After a series of emails and calls from this reporter went unanswered, Bridgewater’s Mayor Ted Flory messaged town manager Jay Litten, reiterating that he knew that the town’s Flock cameras were available to other agencies from across the nation.
“I’m not at all eager to talk to the reporter about this,” Flory wrote. “I’m just going to sit tight for now and not respond.”
Litten agreed, saying that the town needed to step cautiously and not become “the poster child for one side or another in the immigration debate.”
Days after VCIJ published its story showing that data from Bridgewater’s five Flock cameras had been accessed more than 7 million times nationwide, the town manager began seeking answers to the questions VCIJ had posed. He directed his questions to the Virginia State Police.
“We were hoping that the State Police might consider weighing in very briefly on these four questions,” Litten wrote in an email to the VSP’s Public Relations Officer, Robin Lawson. “What happens to Flock photos after 21 days? In what ways might the Flock photos become associated with a particular person? Is Virginia aware of any safeguards which work to prevent Flock photos from being leaked or misused? If you’re able, we would be greatly obliged. The answers would be most helpful this week before Council gathers again.”
Lawson replied to Litten that he should direct his questions to Bridgewater’s police chief, who signed the contract with Flock Safety.
Reach Kunle Falayi at kunle.falayi@vcij.org
