HB2724 gives permission to Virginia State Police to expand use of ALPRs to nearly 60,000 miles of state highways in the Commonwealth, allows law enforcement to use photos from ALPRs for any “active criminal investigation”–a term not defined in Virginia law–and connects the surveillance to a nationwide database accessible to other states and the Federal Government. It is impossible to overstate how grim and harmful this proposal is.

The bill does not restrict the types of offenses law enforcement can surveil people for nor the use of AI to generate algorithms to surveil classes of people such as politicians, immigrants, women seeking reproductive healthcare, and the Black and Brown people who are historically disproportionately impacted. The bill radically transforms the consequences of leaving home to pursue private life and creates tremendous opportunity for abuse by private companies, the police, and the government.

We oppose mass surveillance because of the serious and significant implications on our privacy, the increasing unregulated and unmonitored use of technology by law enforcement, the potential this technology has to become another driver of mass incarceration, the growing costs of this new system on taxpayers, and concerns over the long-term intentions of the private companies who have solicited electeds in our state to build an expansive and seamless system of surveillance nationwide.