Alexandria Mayor Alyia Gaskins said during a review of the city's license plate reader program on Tuesday that she does not believe Flock Safety has a future in Alexandria, putting her at odds with Police Chief Tarrick McGuire, who defended the cameras as essential to solving serious crimes. The public split came as residents packed the discussion with objections to the surveillance technology and its expanding footprint across the city.
Gaskins and McGuire's disagreement, first reported by WUSA9, surfaced just days after a separate investigation raised fresh questions about how many cameras are actually watching Alexandria's streets. According to DC News Now, city leaders are now considering ending Alexandria's contract with Flock Safety entirely amid nationwide concerns over data collection and potential misuse of the camera network.
An Investigation Finds More Cameras Than the City Disclosed
A September 2 investigation by the Alexandria Times verified at least 81 automated license plate readers operating in Alexandria or along its immediate borders, well beyond the 61 cameras officially listed on the city's public portal. The newspaper's review also uncovered more than 50 instances in which officers improperly labeled their reasons for searching the database, a finding that has fueled resident distrust of how the system is actually being used day to day.
The discrepancy matters because of how heavily Alexandria police lean on the technology. Per Patch, Alexandria Police conducted 237,583 searches in the Flock Safety database between March 2023 and June 2026, compared with 822,779 searches by Fairfax County Police and 70,208 by Arlington County Police over similar timeframes.
Police Point to Past Results, Residents Point to Privacy Rules
Police officials have leaned on the program's track record to make their case. During Alexandria's initial six-month pilot launched in March 2023, the city reported that the technology helped resolve 14 cases, contributed to 33 arrests or warrants, and recovered more than $250,000 in stolen property, the article notes.
City policy already includes some guardrails meant to ease privacy concerns. Alexandria Police Department Directive 10.40, updated in October 2025, prohibits sharing license plate reader data with federal civil immigration authorities such as ICE and restricts database access to active criminal investigations, stolen property cases, and missing persons cases. Under Virginia Code § 2.2-5517, law enforcement agencies and contracted vendors are required to irrecoverably purge all ALPR data within 21 days unless it is tied to an ongoing criminal investigation or court proceeding.
Alexandria's Debate Fits a Statewide Pattern
Alexandria is not alone in reconsidering its relationship with the technology. At least 20 localities across Virginia paused or terminated their Flock Safety camera contracts between July and September, according to Cardinal News. Nearby Dumfries recently pulled the plug on eight cameras before they ever went live, choosing to yank cameras before launch over similar privacy and regulatory concerns.
State lawmakers are also weighing in. State Senator Glen Sturtevant announced this month that he plans to introduce legislation during the upcoming General Assembly session to make Flock and similar license plate reader systems illegal statewide, according to a report cited by 8News. Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger has pushed back on outright bans, calling such proposals overly simplistic and favoring regulatory guardrails that protect privacy while preserving the technology as a law enforcement tool, per remarks reported by WTOP.
Flock Safety Moves to Tighten Its Own Rules
The vendor itself has responded to the mounting scrutiny. In August, Flock Safety announced platform-wide updates that shortened its default recommended data retention period from 30 days to seven days and now require law enforcement users to input a valid case number before running database queries, Patch reported. Whether those changes will be enough to keep Alexandria as a customer remains an open question, as the mayor and police chief head into further deliberations with clearly different visions for the program's future.
