21 VA. Advocacy Groups Oppose 2724 Unless Amended—A Letter to House Leadership and Members of the Senate
Sent by email
February 9, 2025
The Honorable Scott A. Surovell, Senate Majority Leader
The Honorable Ryan T. McDougle, Senate Minority Leader
The Honorable Don L. Scott Jr., Speaker of the House
The Honorable Todd. C. Gilbert, House Minority Leader
Members of the Virginia Senate
Dear House Leadership and Members of the Senate,
We urge you to oppose HB 2724 unless amended as described below, so as to halt expansion of mass surveillance and adequately protect individuals’ private lives in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
During the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers voted down—on a bipartisan basis—a proposal to expand ALPRs to state highways without restrictions on their use. Despite rejecting this proposal in 2023 and another proposed expansion in 2024, the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services allocated American Rescue Plan Act funds to expand the use of ALPRs to more localities without regulations.
HB 2724 passed the House and is on the Senate Courts of Justice Committee’s docket for Monday morning. Although the bill has been styled as mere regulation, the reality is it would expand the use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) to thousands more miles of roads and highways—those maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT). This is perhaps the most troubling part of the bill. Also troubling, however, is the inadequacy of the proposed regulatory safeguards. Although HB 2724 includes some protections for ALPR use, it does not go far enough.
ALPRs are designed to track the movements of every vehicle on Virginia’s roadways. These high-speed cameras with image-processing software identify vehicles and pinpoint their location. The images collected capture the license plate, which is converted into machine-readable text, as well as a substantial part of the vehicle which can include the make, model, color, car damage, bumper and window stickers, occupants, and even the immediate vicinity. These images and license plate text are paired with information on the date, time, and GPS location of where the vehicle was detected. Because ALPR systems capture license plate data of all vehicles that drive by, not just of those associated with investigations, database entries can be in the billions. These databases may be maintained by individual government agencies, pooled together into regional sharing systems, or aggregated by private companies from a variety of sources and accessed via subscription. The data can be collected and stored indefinitely.
ALPRs pose serious threats to liberty and privacy. While attempting to regulate the use of ALPRs, the protections in HB 2724 need to be improved. If they are not, the bill must be defeated. Here are the features of HB 2724 that we find most concerning:
Expands surveillance to the nearly 60,000 miles of state roads and highways.
Provides no meaningful restrictions on the ability of other states, private parties, and the federal government to access to Virginia ALPR data through subpoenas or search warrants (including subpoenas/warrants issued to Flock’s headquarters in Georgia).
Increases the amount of information being collected which can be accessed by other states, private parties, or the federal government.
Collects and stores data on the movements of every vehicle’s occupants for 30 days, well beyond when it would be needed for a criminal investigation.
Allows law enforcement to use photos from ALPRs for any “criminal investigation where there is a reasonable suspicion that a crime was committed”—an expansive definition that would even include crimes like jaywalking and littering.
Fails to ensure that this legislation and its disparate impacts will be revisited and reevaluated by the legislature to address unanticipated loopholes with the potential for abuse.
Many of our groups are also concerned that the bill does not restrict the use of AI to generate algorithms to surveil groups of people, and that it fails to provide a uniform statewide policy for how the ALPRs and the data they produce will be used by law enforcement agencies in the Commonwealth.
For these reasons we recommend the following amendments to HB 2724:
Limit the retention of system data to 7 days when the data has not already been flagged as part of a criminal investigation.
Limit ALPR use to missing persons and suspected felonies under Virginia law.
Ensure all Virginia law enforcement agencies are subject to the same data sharing restrictions.
Halt the proposed expansion of ALPRs to the nearly 60,000 miles of state roads and highways.
Include a sunset provision on the legislation, which would require the General Assembly to revisit the regulations and policies and reassess whether they remain in the best interests of the citizens of the Commonwealth.
We, the undersigned organizations, are deeply concerned by the dramatic expansion of ALPRs as proposed by HB2724, and by the unavoidable—and potentially ungovernable— access the bill provides to private parties, other states, and the federal government to an immense amount of highly sensitive data, which has the clear potential for misuse. Norfolk provides a good example of what the rest of Virginia could look like in the near future—there 172 ALPRs in use in the city, with plans to install 65 more, which amounts to nearly one camera for every 1,000 of the city’s 238,000 residents.
We are also concerned about the costs to Virginia’s taxpayers and the intentions of the private companies pushing these products. Flock Safety, the $4 billion tech startup that makes the ALPRs, has lobbied for this legislation in the last three legislative sessions. ALPRs will not be the last surveillance technology they market to Virginia law enforcement agencies.
The right to be free from arbitrary or unlawful interference with one’s private affairs is a core principle not just in our constitution, but to a modern understanding of human rights. Even if the risks of such interference were possible but not likely, the legislature would be obligated to err on the side of caution. That the risks inherent in this bill are so apparent and substantial warrants not just caution, but vigilance, to ensure the fundamental rights of Virginians are not diminished.
For all the foregoing reasons, we ask that the amendments described above be adopted. We must put clear limits on how long this data is kept, the way the data is handled, and with whom it is shared. Without those limits, this legislation must be defeated.
We sincerely request your urgent consideration,
Justice Forward Virginia
Institute for Justice
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL)
League of Women Voters of Virginia
Virginia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (VACDL)
Interfaith Action for Human Rights
Virginia Grassroots Coalition
Advocates for Women & Families
Neighborhood Resource Center
Virginia Justice Alliance
The Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality
Network NOVA
The Cville ID Team
RISE for Youth
Marijuana Justice
Community Reformation of Wholeness Network (CRoWN)
Defend Democracy Indivisible
Sistas in Prison Reform
Virginia Student Power Network
Richmond for All
Nolef Turns
Center for Crime, Equity, and Justice*
Pretrial Justice Institute*
Decriminalize Developmental Disabilities*
Arlington Branch NAACP*
Students for Equity and Reform in Virginia (SERV)*
Bridges Beyond Bars*
Herndon-Reston Indivisible (HRI)*
Henrico County Branch NAACP*
Abolish Slavery Virginia*
Valley Justice Coalition*
Queer Student Union at University of Virginia*
Activate Virginia*
Loudoun4All*
Hunter Mill Huddle*
SURJ Northern Virginia*
*signed-on after February 9, 2025 and sent to lawmakers again on February 12, 2025 with updated opposition to surveillance expansion.