Lucia Reyes ’29 is a prospective psychology major and creative writing minor. She enjoys writing, reading, playing The Sims and listening to the rock and indie music. On campus, she is involved in Best Buddies, Cheese Club and Oriental Tea Club. Contact her at lareyes@wm.edu.
The views expressed in the article are the author’s own.
The College of William and Mary has a $33,000 contract with Flock Safety for the use of Flock Falcon cameras on campus. These license plate reader cameras gather license plate and vehicle appearance information about passing cars, including make, model, color and dents. Flock has national and state networks of information from its cameras that participating customers can access using search terms. The goal of these networks is to aid police in criminal investigations.
A referendum on the College’s 2026 spring student election ballot reflects community concern over the College’s partnership with Flock. The referendum asked students to vote for or against the termination of the College’s contract with Flock.
This goal is admirable. Flock is an unethical and incompetent company that the College should not share data with or rely on for security purposes. Flock has permitted federal agencies involved in immigration enforcement to access its network, as well as police seeking to prosecute a woman for an alleged abortion.
There are many examples of the dangerous misuse of Flock data. In particular, Flock has been very unclear about the level of access that federal agencies, including federal immigration agencies, have to its data. When Flock began a pilot program focused on human trafficking and fentanyl with Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security, it did not disclose this program to customers. Since Flock had previously stated that it had no federal contracts, Flock customers had no reason to suspect that immigration agencies would be able to access Flock’s network of data. Given the violent and indiscriminate nature of recent immigration enforcement, Flock customers deserved to know about Flock’s pilot program with these agencies. Additionally, CBP then began requesting data from police across the country, which some departments granted. In some cases, giving this access to CBP was unintentional because it was not clearly identified as a federal agency when it requested data from local police forces. It was Flock’s responsibility to clearly identify CBP in its network so that users could make informed decisions about data sharing, especially because some states have laws prohibiting immigration-related data sharing with federal agencies.
According to Flock CEO Garrett Langley, “there have been conflicting reports in the media about Flock’s relationship with federal agencies, and some of our public statements inadvertently provided inaccurate information … We clearly communicated poorly. We also didn’t create distinct permissions and protocols in the Flock system to ensure local compliance for federal agency users.”
It is unacceptable for a company dealing with large amounts of sensitive data to make mistakes as catastrophic as these. Companies employ staff to write accurate and clear statements for them; there is absolutely no reason that Flock should have been making “inadvertently” inaccurate statements. And even though Flock’s pilot programs with CBP and DHS were focused on trafficking and fentanyl, they should have built in safeguards to prevent these federal agencies from using Flock data for immigration purposes as well. This federal accessing of immigration enforcement-related data is illegal in some states and ethically questionable given recent violent immigration enforcement.
Flock’s pilot programs with these federal agencies have ended. But audit logs reveal that police departments are now conducting immigration related searches on behalf of federal agencies. Users are required to list a reason for their search, and some police have given “ICE” or “immigration” as the reasons for their searches. The College participates in the Flock Virginia State Network, allowing police in Virginia to share data from its LPR cameras. Other Virginia police departments could potentially be using information from the College’s cameras to aid Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The College’s data sharing is also concerning because other Virginia police agencies have displayed a disregard for the Virginia laws on LPR use. A Virginia State Crime Commission survey revealed that many Virginia police agencies retained LPR data for more than 21 days or shared it with out-of-state or federal agencies, which is prohibited by state law. A third of Virginia police agencies did not respond to the survey, indicating that the noncompliance rate may be even higher than it seems. The College should not be participating in a Flock network that could place LPR data from campus cameras in untrustworthy hands.
Another concern is the use of Flock to prosecute women for having abortions. A Texas sheriff searched Flock’s national network in an attempt to locate a Texas woman who had a self-administered abortion. Police used Flock to attempt to track this woman across state lines and even reviewed footage from states where abortion was legal. Flock, of course, denied that this occurred, despite clear evidence to the contrary.
Since these incidents, Flock has stated that it has implemented keyword filters to block illegal searches about immigration and abortion. However, Flock’s past actions suggest that the company will never adequately protect its customers’ data.
Evidence also suggests that Langley is an untrustworthy steward of the College’s data. In response to criticisms of Flock, he has used inflammatory language to attack detractors. In a Forbes interview, when asked about DeFlock, an anti-Flock organization, Langley compared the activist group to terrorists and Antifa, and he accused them of seeking to undermine order and safety.
In an email sent out to customers, Langley wrote, “Let’s call this what it is: Flock, and the law enforcement agencies we partner with, are under coordinated attack. The attacks aren’t new. You’ve been dealing with this for forever, and we’ve been dealing with this since our founding, from the same activist groups who want to defund the police, weaken public safety, and normalize lawlessness.”
Flock is not only an irresponsible company that should not be trusted with the College’s data; it is also led by a fearmongerer who attacks critics instead of responding to legitimate privacy concerns. The College must not continue to align itself with such a figure.
In response to student concern, the College has affirmed that it only retains data from the LPR cameras for 21 days, which is required by state law.
Additionally, an announcement on the College news page states, “Readers are used only in public areas to deter and solve crime — particularly by perpetrators from outside the campus community.”
However, this does not eliminate the dangers associated with sharing data with other police departments in Virginia, as described above, or of the College maintaining a contract with a company that has demonstrated itself to be negligent and untrustworthy.
Flock’s technology has repeatedly been used for persecutory purposes, and its CEO is an arrogant dogmatist. The College’s campus is not under a significant enough threat from outside criminals driving onto campus for these ethically questionable LPR cameras to be necessary.
