Damascus, Virginia has installed Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR) cameras that use AI to collect and store our data. We are calling on Chief Turner and the Town Council to take down these cameras and not engage with any private corporations with ALPR camera services.

Damascus, VA, known affectionately as "Trail Town USA," is a community and sanctuary for residents and visitors alike. It holds a special place in our hearts, as it does for many who cherish its close-knit community and the natural beauty that surrounds us. However, the installation of Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras around out town poses a significant threat to our privacy and the very essence of what makes our town unique. The concerns of these cameras far outweigh the benefits of them. The unknown breadth of how this data is collected, stored, and used should be a concern to all citizens. 

1. There is a concerning amount of data collected from the cameras.
   1. These cameras collect far more than just your license plate. While it doesn’t read signals from your phone like other surveillance devices do, Flock, the ALPR company that the Town of Damascus contracts with, has deals with commercial data brokers to connect your car and license plate to your Social Security number, creating an all-in-one, massive searchable database.
   2. In October 2025, Flock announced an update that will enhance the microphone abilities, potentially listening to private conversations on future iterations of the tech.
   3. All of these points of data tie to your personage, you. 
   4. Law enforcement entities can even search your plate and SSN and tie it to your medical history.
      1. For example, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in Texas, there were 6,809 inquiries across 83,345 Flock cameras spanning the country searching medical records and plates. This type of search ignores jurisdiction procedure across municipalities, counties, and states and violates HIPPA.
   5. This data is being used outside of capturing license plate numbers. Search inquiries can include “male”, “female”, “african american”, “people who bought a gun”, “protestors”, etc. These profiles can lead to dangerous generalizations even for law-abiding citizens.
   6. The amount of data collected is baffling. There is no reasonable justification on how much data is being tied to my person just because I am in public.
2. The data collected has a record of not being safely stored.
   1. According to Flock, customers, in this case the Town of Damascus, own the data collected. Customers of Flock have had multiple unintentional instances of sharing the vast amount of data collected.
      1. Some cities and states have limited sharing the data to third parties, meaning other agencies besides the customer. However, this limitation has not been a guarantee in data safety.
         1. For example, according to The Guardian, in Mountain View, CA, federal agencies accessed camera data without permission from the city. Mountain View then subsequently disabled their cameras and terminated their contract with Flock.
      2. Multiple cities and states have also accidentally shared the Flock camera data with the public, across the open web, according to NPR. This sharing has been recorded in multiple cities in the states of Washington and California.
   2. Flock camera data is also being used for AI training, as outlined in customer contracts. AI training data has been notoriously mishandled to the point that many hospitals, schools, and government facilities do not trust sensitive information to AI. Our personage collected from the Flock cameras is being exported onto computer servers to train computers, as part of the contract with Flock.
      1. And AI training is fallible. Flock has incorrectly flagged multiple cars as stolen, sometimes leading to dangerous law enforcement confrontations. According to Business Insider, Flock incorrectly flagged 71% of the 1,427 felony and stolen vehicle alerts over a year in Roseville, CA.
   3. There are multiple YouTube tutorials on how to hack Flock cameras with a simple Android phone, which show how easily the data safety can be compromised.
3. The data also has a record of being misused.
   1. Municipalities all over the country have had instances of the Flock camera data being used for nefarious means.
   2. Over a dozen police officers have been arrested for stalking ex-partners through Flock camera data.
      1. Now, I trust our beloved Kermit with the data, but because the data has a record of not being stored safely, it is unknown who has access to the data and to what end.
      2. In the Town of Damascus, I am supposing that our technology needs are outsourced to a different company. In which case, our data is most likely being outsourced to people I don’t belove. And who may not belove me. 
   3. There are lawsuits in progress now for warrantless search inquiries into the camera data. Law enforcement entities are searching the Flock camera data like Google.
      1. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in San Jose, CA, there were a recorded 3,965,519 instances of warrantless searches in one year from June 2024 to June 2025. 
   4. We, as public citizens, cannot ensure the ethical use of our person to just catch criminals. Our private information is being searched by people we cannot vet. It is beyond fallible, it is untrustworthy.
4. The cameras themselves pose risks.
   1. There are crowd-sourced maps of Flock cameras available online. According to ABC news in Augusta, GA, people will drive to avoid Flock cameras. Damascus is in a fragile state with our businesses and our main tourist driver under construction. We cannot afford to have people avoid Damascus.
   2. According to Gadget Review, even the poles that the cameras are mounted on “act like a spear” in car accidents and create more dangerous car wrecks than if there were not a pole there. And even Flock acknowledges that these poles are “regularly” installed in violation of federal, state, and local safety requirements.
   3. Mounting lawsuits could put the Town of Damascus at liability. Privacy concerns with Flock cameras could leave Damascus open to lawsuits about privacy invasion.
   4. Not only are the data concerns worrisome, but the hardware and cameras themselves make several risks.
   5. 
      

Limiting data searches to just warrant searches, is an unsuitable action because the Town of Damascus cannot guarantee the safety of the data collected, nor vet viewers. While the Town of Damascus could change the retention duration of the data collected from the default 30 days to as little as a few hours, it’s unclear whether that data would be permanently deleted from servers it is stored on.

Many municipalities have removed their Flock cameras and terminated their contracts with Flock, including nearby Floyd County, VA. We propose that Damascus do the same to ensure the data safety of its citizens and to protect travelers who come to experience what we have to offer. We also propose that Damascus declines any future contracts with other ARLP camera companies, as they also deploy similar mass surveillance methods.

Damascus has been a haven for travelers to escape city life and be in nature, away from technology and mass surveillance. Here trust and community go hand-in-hand. We should not subject our community and tourists to untrustworthy data collection.