A federal judge in Virginia ruled Tuesday that the City of Norfolk’s use of nearly 200 automated license plate readers (ALPRs) from Flock is constitutional and can continue, dismissing the entire case just days before a bench trial was set to begin.
The case, Schmidt v. City of Norfolk, was originally filed in October 2024 by two Virginians who claimed that their rights were violated when the Flock network of cameras captured their cars hundreds of times, calling the entire setup a “dragnet surveillance program.”
However, in a 51-page ruling, US District Court Judge Mark S. Davis disagreed, finding that the “…plaintiffs are unable to demonstrate that Defendants’ ALPR system is capable of tracking the whole of a person’s movements.”
Judge Davis acknowledged that while there may come a time when the use of ALPRs becomes too intrusive, “what is readily apparent to this Court is that, at least in Norfolk, Virginia, the answer is: not today.”
The Virginia plaintiffs were represented by attorneys from the Institute of Justice, a libertarian non-profit public interest law firm that vowed to appeal the ruling.
Over the past decade, Flock Safety has grown to become the most sophisticated and largest ALPR vendor in America. The City of Norfolk—along with thousands of other law enforcement agencies across the country—contracts with the Atlanta-based startup, most recently valued at $7.5 billion, for ALPR services.
Flock cameras capture not just a simple license plate number—as the tech once did a decade ago—but now can easily capture make, model, and other visual details from each car; these can be searched using AI-powered natural language queries that can include phrases like “bike rack” or “tow truck.”
Recently, some jurisdictions ranging from Santa Cruz, California, to Charlottesville, Virginia, have ended their contracts with Flock over concerns that the technology is too invasive and may provide information to federal immigration authorities over the objections of local policymakers. Last year, two senators expressed grave privacy concerns and wrote in a letter to the company that “abuse of Flock cameras is inevitable.”