The City of Alexandria has installed between 60-70 mass surveillance cameras (there is a current discrepancy about the number) without our consent. Automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) are AI surveillance technology designed to track, collect, and store the movements of every traveler. They pose serious threats to our safety, liberty and privacy. The city has contracted with a $8.4 billion tech startup company–Flock “Safety”--funded by Peter Thiel of Palantir and others, the private company (and others like it) aim to create a seamless system of surveillance nationwide.

ALPRs have been used to surveil people for political views, religious views, race, sexual orientation, immigration status, seeking reproductive healthcare, bearing arms and other constitutionally protected rights. ALPRs have been used to stalk women, children, and intimate partners. ALPR databases in Virginia have been accessed by federal agencies to include ICE, DHS, ATF, CBP, and other out-of-state law enforcement and government agencies—ICE alone has tapped into over 80,000 ALPRs nationwide for their “immigration” crackdown. ALPRs frequently relay false positives, misreads, and other errors that have contributed to high risk traffic stops; innocent people held at gunpoint, wrongfully accused, incarcerated, mauled, and permanently disabled.

We oppose mass surveillance because of:

• the serious and significant implications on our safety

• the increasing abuse by law enforcement and government

• the disparate impacts on minority and immigrant communities

• the potential this technology has to become another driver of mass incarceration

• the growing costs of this new system on taxpayers

• and the unavoidable access ALPRs provide to law enforcement, private parties, other states, and the federal government to an immense amount of highly sensitive data.

Alexandria City Council has the power to turn off all ALPRs TODAY, and to cancel Alexandria’s mass surveillance contracts, including Flock. Take this one click call to action to demand council DeFlock Alexandria, and protect people from harmful mass surveillance.