UPDATE: FRIDAY, 2/14

A bill expanding mass surveillance will be heard Monday 2/17/25 at 8AM in Senate Courts of Justice. Some proposed changes have been agreed to by the patron that fail to offer the critical protections needed and MOREOVER, expands mass surveillance to over 60K of highways in the Commonwealth. This is a brand new action: please use the CTA to let Senate Courts of Justice members know that you oppose HB2724's expansion of mass surveillance in Virginia.

During the 2023 Virginia General Assembly Legislative Session lawmakers voted down–in resounding bipartisan fashion–a proposal to allow the Virginia State Police to conduct mass surveillance on Virginians using automatic license plate readers (ALPRs). ALPRs are surveillance technology designed to track the movements of every driver on Virginia’s roadways. ALPRs pose serious threats to liberty and privacy.

The failed proposal would have given law enforcement—and potentially, the private companies selling the ALPRs—access to the movements of every driver, and authorized the police to install, maintain, and operate devices for law enforcement purposes on any and all roads/highways maintained by VDOT without oversight or compliance regulation. Although lawmakers rejected bills that would have introduced mass surveillance throughout the state, the state granted use of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to expand the use of ALPRs to localities.

However, the Virginia State Police cannot employ mass surveillance tools on state highways without explicit permission from General Assembly members. And unbelievably, Virginia lawmakers have brought forth a bill this session that will do just that. 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.

We are asking you to email members of the Senate Courts of Justice and encourage them to protect the lives, liberty, safety, and interests of the public, not the predatory private companies whose technology seeks to invade our private lives.