Arlington Against Mass Surveillance is a coalition effort to ban ALPRs in Arlington, VA.

We are a network of concerned citizens, including people from DeFlock NoVA and WoFA. However, this group and campaign are for all citizens of Arlington and nearby localities, who object to the mass surveillance technology known as Automatic License Plate Readers.

We are grateful for the leadership and policy guidance from Justice Forward Virginia. We also learn from, support, and coordinate with DeFlock Fairfax and DeFlock Alexandria.

As the Senate hearing on ALPRs shows, there is bipartisan concern about these mass surveillance systems. We cannot wait for the federal government or the state to protect us, as politicians have chosen their corporate interests time and again. Instead, we must urge our locality to ban this technology.

Broken Public Trust

Many people have been meeting with our board members in small groups for over a year working on the Flock removal. The Public Safety presentation on Flock in the September Recessed Board Meeting was essentially a public relations stunt. They assured us that our data was safe and auditable, however the Flock Terms of Service directly contradict these claims. There is no way for the county as customers to verify that Flock has followed the retention policy:

"For clarity, Flock retains the exclusive right to determine and control the method, timing, format and medium of such access or delivery, and is not obligated to provide Customer Data in any alternative form, format, or transmission method outside the Web Interface." (Flock TOS Section 2.1)

Flock's Terms of Service says "Flock may access, use, preserve and/or disclose the Customer Data to Law Enforcement authorities, government officials, and/or third parties, if legally required to do so or if Flock has a good faith believe that such access, use, preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with a legal process, enforce this Agreement, or detect, prevent, or otherwise address security, privacy, fraud, or technical issues, or emergency situations." (Flock TOS Section 5.3)

There is also ample evidence of Flock lying to customers and the public.