Tuesday, Feb. 10, students from the College of William and Mary gathered in Washington Hall to discuss how to organize against Flock surveillance cameras in Williamsburg, Va.
Charlie Goodman ’27 led the meeting, outlining the group’s effort to persuade the Williamsburg City Council to cancel its Flock contract over privacy concerns. In doing so, the students hoped that the College would follow suit and end its own agreement.
“Appealing to Williamsburg City is a lot simpler than the path toward appealing to the William and Mary administration,” he said.
Ella Forlin ’27 helped Goodman organize the student meeting.
“We know that as students, they might not listen to us,” Forlin said. “If we get a coalition of people involved, they’re much more likely to hear our concerns.”
Goodman explained how automatic license plate readers, such as Flock, operate.
“ALPRs are automatic license plate readers, and they record every license plate that passes by them, no matter what,” he said.
Flock uses artificial intelligence to record additional vehicle characteristics, such as type, color, unique alterations and whether a car frequently passes by any of its cameras. This information is stored on the FlockOS software system, allowing law enforcement to search for vehicle details.
FlockOS allows police to put license plates onto hotlists, where Flock sends a notification each time a particular vehicle drives by a camera in its network.
According to state laws, all data gathered from these cameras must be automatically purged from the Flock system after 21 days. Police can extend the retention period for this information only if they have probable cause to believe that the data would be necessary for law enforcement purposes.
FlockOS also lets its customers enroll in its state and nationwide network, enabling local law enforcement agencies across Virginia or the country to search and access data from Williamsburg.
While Virginia law prohibits the sharing of Flock data across its nationwide system, it allows local police departments to determine whether to share their data within the state network.
The College is a part of the Flock’s Virginia state networking system, which allows agencies to share data, according to Chief of William and Mary Police Don Butler.
Goodman said law enforcement’s ability to make warrantless searches on the FlockOS system within the retention period is a key privacy issue.
Goodman highlighted other issues with the network, noting that accountability for Flock use is left solely to individual police departments. Goodman suggested this could open opportunities for abuse.
“[Flock] doesn’t do any proactive audits, so they really don’t know their own system is being used,” he said.
Under the Flock statewide sharing system, the misuse of data by one police department could compromise the data of every other department that also shares its information, per Goodman.
“All counties have access to all other counties, so it [only] takes one police officer to make a mistake,” he added.
Forlin encouraged others who were also worried about Flock to email College leaders and Williamsburg City Council members to express their concern.
“Even if you don’t necessarily feel comfortable talking about this at length, it’s worth sending an email,” she said.
A William and Mary Police Department policy explains the College’s intent in implementing Flock cameras around campus.
“The LPR network is intended to mitigate known threats, deter crimes, and assist in protecting the personal safety and property of the university community,” the policy states.
To ensure its actions are consistent with university standards and the law, WMPD has an internal audit policy that requires the deputy chief or a designee to perform an internal audit of the College’s Flock use at least once every 30 days.
Through a Freedom of Information request, The Flat Hat obtained the agreement between Flock Safety and the College. The request also contained related documents detailing the WMPD policy regarding the cameras and their locations around campus.
Virginia law prohibits Flock from accessing the data of its customers without their prior request. However, the contract requires the College to consent to Flock using its data.
Flock requires that the College specifically allow the company to collect, anonymize and use its information for developing its software and artificial intelligence models. The agreement allows the company to use this data for training its models without direct input from the College.
Virginia law allows local law enforcement to share its information to other police agencies for investigations into state crimes, missing persons or human trafficking cases.
Sharing data with federal agencies or out-of-state law enforcement investigating other matters requires a court order.
The statute does not extend to civil investigations. Because Virginia law limits ALPR data sharing to investigations of Virginia crimes, missing persons or human trafficking, local police departments may not share such data for civil immigration enforcement purposes.
An investigation from the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO found nearly 3,000 federal immigration enforcement FlockOS searches over 12 months across two Virginia localities, the Town of Bridgewater and Mecklenburg County.
These findings suggest ICE had at least some access to local Virginia police department data before the law regulating Flock was signed.
Other reporting finds that ICE has accessed Flock data for immigration enforcement through other federal agencies.
Last July, ABC 8News reported that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives used Flock data in Richmond, Va. for federal immigration enforcement without the permission of local police.
Butler said the College has not shared its data with any federal law enforcement agencies.
“We’re very careful about how we vet those requests,” Butler said. “We’ll talk through it to make sure it’s legally sound to do so, within our policy and the values of the university and the police department.”
Butler elaborated on WMPD’s policy regarding law enforcement as it relates to immigration.
“The William and Mary police department does not assist with civil immigration, in any way, shape, or form,” he said.
Butler added that Flock cameras only collect public license plate information and that the College uses Flock solely for law enforcement purposes.
Associate Vice President for Public Safety Cliff Everton ’96 acknowledged that Flock was using anonymized customer data to develop and train its AI software. He noted that it is not an uncommon thing for technology companies to do.
“I would say that that’s what every company does to enhance their algorithms,” he said. “That would be something that you would want to take up with the company.”
Everton elaborated that the data Flock uses for training its models is not tied to any personally identifiable student information.
Everton said he is open to the idea of the College opening a Flock transparency portal once all Flock cameras are operating. He stressed that the College does not see its use of Flock as violating any rights around privacy.
“These cameras are on public roads, in locations where there’s no reasonable expectation of privacy,” he said.
Everton appreciates how members of the community have come to him with genuine concerns about Flock.
“That’s the American way,” Everton said. “We should be asking these questions.”
CORRECTION (02/19/26): A previous version of this article referred to William & Mary as part of a “statewide Virginia Flock sharing program.” During the interview, Chief Butler confirmed that the William & Mary Police Department participates in Flock’s Virginia state networking system, which allows local law enforcement agencies in Virginia to share data in accordance with state law. The article has also been updated to more precisely reflect Butler’s statement that WMPD “does not assist with civil immigration” and to clarify the scope of Virginia law governing ALPR data sharing. Additionally, Cliff Everton’s title has been corrected to Associate Vice President for Public Safety.
DISCLOSURE (02/27/26): After publication, the College confirmed that its agreement incorporates Flock’s most recent (February 2026) Terms & Conditions, which grant Flock a license to use “Customer Data” to support and improve its products and services. The College directed The Flat Hat to Flock’s publicly available Privacy Policy regarding data practices, including model training. This disclosure has been added for transparency.
