At least five Virginia counties shared data collected by Flock Safety automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) with federal authorities for immigration enforcement, despite prohibitions against using the surveillance for such operations, according to law enforcement logs.
About 50 immigration-related enforcement searches were conducted in Flock data in Fairfax, Chesterfield, Isle of Wight, Loudoun and Stafford counties between June 2024 and April 2025, according to an analysis of the logs. Law enforcement agencies create logs of searches for license plate and vehicle data collected by the Flock Safety cameras.
The logs reveal how data from more than 1,000 cameras tracking Virginia motorists was shared widely between agencies, and potentially used beyond its original purpose for criminal investigations and locating missing persons. The online tech news site 404 Media first reported on the data logs, known as audits, and shared data with the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO and other media outlets. The tech news site identified roughly 4,000 immigration-related searches in the Flock system data.
Virginia law enforcement agencies have posted on Flock Safety’s website that they will not use the system for immigration enforcement. The Virginia policy statements have identical “prohibited uses” banning the system’s use for immigration enforcement.
Flock Safety CEO Garret Langley said in a recent statement that local law enforcement agencies are responsible for complying with policies posted. Other jurisdictions have used Flock cameras to search for immigration violations.
“It is a local decision,” Langley wrote on the company website. “Not my decision, and not Flock’s decision.”
Following revelations of possible use of ALPR data for immigration enforcement in Virginia and other states, Langley said that “in some states and jurisdictions, local law enforcement work with federal authorities to enforce immigration offenses.”
A new Virginia law limiting the storage, sharing, and usage of ALPR data that took effect July 1 could prevent similar data from being shared across state boundaries.
Despite new restrictions, civil liberties advocates say allowing federal immigration authorities to access the trove of data will lead to further erosion of privacy rights. A lawsuit filed in Norfolk is challenging the constitutionality of the AI-powered system.
“I'm deeply concerned,” said Rob Poggenklass, executive director of Justice Forward Virginia. “It's a major problem that agencies will use their point of access to the Flock system to get information in jurisdictions where it is either prohibited by law or the agency is not actively cooperating with ICE.”
The scrutiny on public surveillance systems comes as President Donald Trump’s administration steps up immigration investigations and deportations, spreading alarm from immigrant advocates and civil liberties groups about trampled rights and warrantless surveillance. Flock cameras are deployed by law enforcement in at least 28 cities and counties across Virginia, capturing data from tens of thousands of vehicles every day.
Law enforcement and company officials say the cameras can be a valuable policing tool.
Flock Safety said it is putting in place additional guardrails to ensure local law enforcement agencies in Virginia, California, Illinois and other states comply with recent ALPR laws. While the company did not state exactly what these new updates would do, compliance with Virginia's regulations may mean a software feature that makes it impossible for data from the state to be shared with other jurisdictions outside the state.
Virginia is one of the states with the most agencies assisting ICE’s enforcement under a program known as “287(g).” The program allows ICE to delegate immigration enforcement to local law enforcement agencies. As of June 23, 24 county sheriff’s offices and agencies across the state have officially signed up to help ICE under the program.
Loudoun County is the only one of the five Virginia law enforcement agencies where immigration-related Flock searches were found that partners with ICE enforcement through the 287(g) program.
Immigration searches in five Virginia counties
In spite of the way the technology is named, the automatic license plate reader does not actually need a license plate to identify a vehicle, according to Flock Safety.
The company says the AI-powered tool captures a vehicle’s “fingerprint” – attributes like make, model and color as well as other features like decals or bumper stickers, roof racks and even temporary paper plates. All these can be used to find a vehicle in the data.
The cameras are commonly placed along major roadways, as well as commercial areas and residential neighborhoods. They capture still images, not videos, and also store the date, time and location for each image. Flock Safety said cameras do not capture the faces of motorists.
Users can only search data collected as far back as one month, the company said, “unless otherwise specified in the individual customer’s agreement.”
Even though Flock Safety has the largest network of ALPR cameras across the country, it is only one of several companies offering the service. In Virginia, counties like Fairfax also have ALPR contracts with Axon, a law enforcement technology company based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Ekin, a surveillance tech company based in Miami, also provides ALPR services in Norfolk and Hampton.
The Flock system provides an option for police departments to share data with other jurisdictions within a specific geographical area. A police department can also choose to join a national lookup network through which they have access to the data from all police departments within the network.
VCIJ at WHRO obtained the Flock Safety network audits after a group of researchers requested the data from a single police department in Danville, Illinois. The network audit showed search data from hundreds of agencies within the Flock network. The data, captured between June 2024 and April 2025, included who conducted the search and its law enforcement purpose.
The data shared with the VCIJ shows that at least 50 of those were searched in Fairfax, Chesterfield, Isle of Wight, Loudoun and Stafford counties.
More than half of the searches are attributed to Fairfax County.
Researchers were able to determine what could be a potential immigration-related search by filtering the “reason” field in the network audit data for terms like ‘DHS’, ‘ICE’, ‘CBP’ and other immigration-related terms. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
The data shows how a single user can query the images captured from thousands of cameras within and outside the searcher’s jurisdiction.
A search from Fairfax County by a user called “M. Len” looked up data from over 76,000 cameras on March 11, 2025. The user logged “DHS case assistance” as the reason for the search. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is in charge of ICE.
Another user referred to as “B. Kos” searched the data across 81,000 cameras on April 29 for a reason stated as “HSI patrol car arson.” The Department of Homeland Security has an investigative arm called HSI or Homeland Security Investigations.
In the logs from the other four counties which feature in the data, officials who conducted searches filled terms like “ice fugitive” and “cbp” in the reason column. In some instances, what appear to be case numbers are included in the column.
Fairfax County Police Department spokesman Capt. Jesse Katzman said the searches on which the county’s name appears were not conducted by officials of the department.
“We share our license plate reader system with 13 other agencies. The Federal Government may have task force officers who may have the ability to search the system directly,” said Katzman.
“While this may look like [the searches] are coming from Fairfax, it is not a Fairfax County officer doing the inquiry. I can tell you that because each one of these is not our case numbers or event numbers. Those have nothing to do with us,” he said.
The county’s Flock system does not allow Fairfax officers to choose immigration enforcement as a reason for a search, he said.
Four searches were conducted from the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office between January 13 and 16 for a reason stated in the log as “Assist DHS.”
A spokesperson for the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office, Ryan Wilbur, confirmed the searches and said they were for a criminal case. The investigation was being conducted by DHS, he said. Stafford County collaborates with federal immigration officials, but has not signed an agreement with ICE to accept enforcement responsibilities.
“It was a DHS case we were assisting with,” Wilbur said. “We work with all our federal partners. When requested, we provide support and coordination for criminal matters.”
Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Thomas Julia said even though the reason for a search conducted on the county’s Flock system on March 13 was stated as “HSI 03192025”, it was not related to an immigration case.
“It relates solely to a tip we received about a massage parlor that may have been involved in prostitution,” Julia said. “We do not participate in ICE enforcement activities and our deputies do not ask immigration status when making a traffic stop or arrest, nor do they have access to immigration information. Only when someone is arrested on criminal charges unrelated to immigration and taken to our jail do we initiate queries to determine if there are outstanding warrants and interest from another agency or jurisdiction, including ICE.”
The Loudon Sheriff’s office has a long-standing practice of collaboration with ICE in cases of persons arrested and taken into custody, Julia said.
VCIJ found six searches from Chesterfield County Police Department for reasons including “ICE fugitive”, “HSI tip for money laundering” and in one case “HSI juan vargas.” Department spokesperson Elizabeth Caroon said three of the searches “were conducted at the request of immigration authorities.”
The search related to an individual who had been “found to be a criminal alien living in the U.S. with multiple convictions,” Caroon said.
“We work closely with our federal partners to investigate criminal activity,” she said. “The only role we play in immigration enforcement is outlined in Virginia Code.”
Five searches from Isle of Wight County show “cbp” as the reason for the lookups. Isle of Wight Sheriff‘s Office spokesperson Capt. Tommy Potter identified the searcher as an investigator assigned as a task force agent to CBP.
The investigator’s work with CBP has nothing to do with immigration enforcement, Potter said.
“The work of this task force centers on human trafficking, narcotics, and copyright infringement,” he said. “The searches in question were related to a narcotics case where large amounts of narcotics were being shipped in and out of our jurisdiction, some of which originated overseas.”
Potter said the sheriff’s office fully cooperates with all local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies but “go to great lengths not to muddy the water.”
ICE did not respond to questions from VCIJ about its access to the state’s ALPR data.
Virginia’s new ALPR law
Virginia’s new law permits police to use the APLR data only for criminal investigations where they have reasonable suspicion that an offense has been committed. The data may also be used for active searches for missing or endangered persons, human trafficking and responding to alerts about stolen vehicles or outstanding warrants.
The law mandates annual reporting on the number and types of cameras in use, how and why the system was queried, demographics of suspects and stopped drivers, as well as third-party data requests and instances of unauthorized access.
The new law now exempts both system data and audit trail records from public disclosure under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.
The law’s sponsor, Del. Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria, said the measure would allow better state oversight of ALPR networks. “The cameras are there already and we are in the dark, as a commonwealth, about where they are,” Herring told Cardinal News in February. “Without this bill there are no protections.”
Lawmakers in South Carolina, New Mexico and New York have recently passed similar legislation to regulate the use of the surveillance system, as concerns over privacy and usage expand nationwide. An ALPR bill before Texas lawmakers is proposing that ALPR data in the state can only be used with a warrant or court order.
Experts are concerned that Virginia’s new ALPR law may not adequately protect residents if federal authorities pressure local police to share data for purposes beyond what the law allows. For example, ICE may be able to force law enforcement agencies to hand over ALPR data to enable deportations.
“This use of the ALPRs is entirely predictable,” said Chris Kaiser, policy director of the ACLU in Virginia. “It is one of the primary reasons we've warned against their proliferation and against weak regulations of their use.”
Poggeklass said the new law makes it clear that Flock data can only be used for a Virginia criminal investigation.
“But what would stop the federal government from subpoenaing Flock Safety in Atlanta, Georgia, where its headquarters are, and getting the data there?” he said. “There's nothing Virginia lawmakers can do to stop that except prohibiting the cameras altogether.”
Reach Kunle Falayi at kunle.falayi@whro.org.
Clarification: Flock Safety did not respond to questions from VCIJ at WHRO before the story was published.
After the story was published, Flock Safety spokesperson Holly Beilin said the company does not have a policy prohibiting immigration enforcement, but allows law enforcement agencies to post their own enforcement policies on Flock’s website. In posts on Flock’s website, the transparency statements of Virginia law enforcement agencies show identical language prohibiting immigration enforcement.
The story has been updated to reflect Flock Safety’s comments.
