A community group calling for the removal of automated license plate readers across Richmond said they left a recent meeting with Mayor Danny Avula’s office more concerned than when they arrived.
Over the last five months, the Richmond chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America has been advocating to “de-Flock” the city and asking for greater transparency and oversight of the city’s use of automatic license plate readers.
The Richmond Police Department operates nearly 100 Flock Safety cameras, which can log passing license plates and vehicle identifiers along with time and location data. RPD then retains the data for 21 days before it is automatically deleted. The data is stored on a centralized cloud database managed by Flock — and can be accessed by other law enforcement agencies across participating jurisdictions…