Across Virginia, automated license plate readers built by Flock Safety silently capture and log details of every passing car. Most people don’t know they are being tracked; fewer know where that data ends up.
Data from automatic license plate readers usually ends up in the hands of law enforcement. In Virginia, state and local law enforcement can access this data to support criminal investigations or missing persons cases. But in the City of Richmond, a recent incident is raising concerns about how technology can be misused for federal immigration enforcement.
In March, after four people detained at an ICE detention center in Farmville escaped, an agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives accessed data collected by Richmond’s license plate reader system to assist in the immigration investigation — without permission to use the data for that purpose…