ALX Surveillance

The state of surveillance in Alexandria

Flock is the surveillance company city residents increasingly recognize — both from press and from their automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras posted on poles around the city. Flock is also just one company Alexandria’s police are using across at least eight categories of surveillance technology. It’s possible other departments across the city are using even more surveillance tech, but we don’t know about it. No company, contract, or tech has ever gone before a public vote.

Because of the lack of government transparency, information on this page has been pieced together by city residents from a variety of sources: a map built by volunteers around the country, filings the Commonwealth requires, policies the police department wrote for itself, and records somebody had to go and request.

It is incomplete. Finding out what your own city operates should not take this much digging.

Why we start with Flock ALPR cameras

Flock ALPR cameras are not the only surveillance technology the city of Alexandria uses. The city also runs cell site simulators, drones, GPS trackers, and more, from a variety of vendors. All of it deserves the same public disclosure process.

Flock cameras come first on this page because residents can actually see and document them. ALPR cameras bolted to a pole are visible from the sidewalk, while a cell site simulator or a software license is not. Flock ALPR cameras are also the one system the city of Alexandria has been forced to disclose the most about, in part as a reaction to mounting concerns with the vendor. Flock certainly should not still have the keys to our city’s sensitive data. But, let’s be clear, we also don’t want another manufacturer of ALPRs to quietly replace Flock without meaningful public input — a strategy used by police departments and city councils across the country.

For more on what Flock is and the concerns around how it’s used, see our FAQs.

Who can access Alexandria’s Flock data

At a minimum, Alexandria Police Department (APD) staff, APD sharing partners, and Flock have access to Alexandria’s Flock ALPR data. But the full picture is more complicated than the city ALPR portal and transparency efforts suggest:

• •The list of APD’s authorized sharing partners keeps changing without explanation, three times in three weeks in August 2026 alone.
• •Flock has repeatedly failed to stop impermissible ALPR data sharing.
• •And the January 2026 Virginia Crime Commission report found statutory sharing restrictions have not stopped multiple Virginia law enforcement departments from sharing with prohibited entities.

“Who can see this data” is a basic oversight question, and our city can’t answer it confidently or consistently for ALPRs.

*And this number keeps changing.

Source: Alexandria Brief, “Alexandria’s Flock page now lists the 161 Virginia agencies that can search its cameras”

It’s not just Flock

Virginia law requires every police department to report annually to the state which surveillance technologies it used, accessed, or procured. Alexandria’s filing for July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025 reports 8 categories in use. None of them has been the subject of a Council hearing. We had to request this filing to read it; the city has never volunteered it.

Filed with the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services under Va. Code § 9.1-116.10 by Sergeant Oliver Dunn. Category names below are quoted exactly as they appear on the state’s form.

• ✓

  International mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) catchers and other cell site simulators

  Devices that impersonate a cell tower so nearby phones connect to them. Alexandria has never discussed this publicly.

• ✓

  Automatic license plate readers (like Flock)

• ✓

  Closed-circuit television cameras

• ✓

  Video and audio monitoring or recording technology, such as Body-Worn Cameras, other surveillance cameras, and wide-angle cameras

• ✓

  Tools, including software and hardware, used to gain access to a computer, computer service, or computer network

• ✓

  Software designed to integrate or analyze data from surveillance technology, including surveillance target tracking and predictive policing software

  A broad category. Checking it tells us the department uses surveillance-analysis software; it does not tell us which products, and it is not by itself evidence of predictive policing.

• ✓

  Drones

• ✓

  GPS Trackers

The filing also reports assistance received from NVERS — Northern Virginia Emergency Response System (training on counter surveillance systems, Dedrone, etc.)