Kingsmill on the James, a 3,000-acre gated community in Williamsburg, has not installed Flock Safety cameras, its police chief confirmed in a recent email. The surveillance company behind the technology actively pitches license plate readers to homeowners associations (HOAs). Separately, James City County reported, in a Sept. 30 news release, that state police have charged a former county police officer in connection with alleged misuse of law enforcement computer systems and an automated license plate reader system. The charges come at a time when the surveillance technology has come under more scrutiny, both in public and private settings such as Kingsmill.
James West, chief of the Kingsmill Police Department, a private, state-certified police force, said in a Sept. 15 response to an email from the Williamsburg Independent that the community has not implemented the Flock Safety camera system. In the email, he noted that the community does use another form of license plate recognition (LPR) cameras to log gate entries, though it is not used for automated entry. Chief West wrote that unlike the wide ranging surveillance capabilities and wanted-vehicle alerts provided by Flock, the technology used by Kingsmill does not link to a policing database or alert system. Chief West added that his department does not comment further on hardware configuration or placement.
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Flock markets its cameras to HOAs as a tool against break-ins, vehicle thefts, package theft and illegal dumping. The company claims that each solar-powered, cellular-connected license plate reader can photograph passing vehicles day or night from up to 75 feet, and software that learns from images logs details such as make, color and plate type. A subscription for an HOA covers installation and maintenance, with a recommendation of at least one camera for every 50 homes. According to the company, customers such as an HOA own the footage, though it is deleted after seven days unless local law requires otherwise, though law enforcement can access the information only if the community opts in.
As concern for misuse of the technology increases, Virginia State Police agents have charged Androu A. Eskandar, 30, a former James City County police officer, with five felony and three misdemeanor counts of computer invasion of privacy and five misdemeanor counts of improper use of an automated license plate reader, or ALPR, system. The release alleges that he used his position as an officer to access law enforcement systems for non-law-enforcement purposes tied to an internal matter involving coworkers. County police learned of the alleged crimes in March, and Eskandar resigned April 17. James City reports that he surrendered to the Virginia State Police on Sept. 28 and was released on an unsecured bond. Their release adds that the department has retrained staff and added random audits to the monthly audit state law requires. The county police transparency page on Flock's website, updated Oct. 2, lists 14-day data retention and 20 cameras, plus 171,185 vehicles detected and 321 hits on national and statewide hotlists in the past 30 days.
Representatives of Ford's Colony, another large gated community in James City County, did not respond to requests for comment on whether it uses ALPR technology or Flock Safety cameras in particular. A webpage for the 3,200-acre community of more than 2,800 homes, which has four gated entrances, notes that they also use the same technology as Kingsmill, which comes from a company called TEKWave Solutions. The association's TEKWave page does not specifically mention plate-reading cameras or Flock.