u/Dave_Briggman

In you're keeping your eyes on Flock in the area.

You want the City Council to pass something along these lines:

AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND THE CODE OF THE CITY OF HARRISONBURG, VIRGINIA, BY ADDING CHAPTER ____, PROHIBITING THE ACQUISITION, DEPLOYMENT, OPERATION, AND FUNDING OF AUTOMATED LICENSE PLATE READER SYSTEMS AND FUNCTIONALLY EQUIVALENT MASS SURVEILLANCE CAMERA SYSTEMS BY THE CITY OF HARRISONBURG AND ITS AGENCIES.

BE IT ORDAINED by the Council of the City of Harrisonburg, Virginia, that the Code of the City of Harrisonburg is hereby amended by adding a new Chapter ____ to read as follows:

Section 1. Title.

This chapter shall be known and may be cited as the "Harrisonburg Automated Surveillance Prohibition Ordinance."

Section 2. Findings and Purpose.

The Council of the City of Harrisonburg finds and declares:

(a) Automated license plate reader ("ALPR") systems and functionally equivalent camera networks capture, timestamp, and geolocate the movements of vehicles, and therefore of the residents of and visitors to the City of Harrisonburg, indiscriminately and without individualized suspicion, and retain that data for later query, aggregation, and cross-jurisdictional sharing.

(b) The aggregation of location data over time can reveal the privacies of life, including a person's associations, movements, patterns, and beliefs, and both state and federal courts have recognized that the sustained, indiscriminate collection of such data implicates significant privacy interests.

(c) The Supreme Court of Virginia has addressed the passive collection and retention of automated license plate reader data under the Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act, Va. Code §§ 2.2-3800 through 2.2-3809.

(d) The General Assembly enacted a permissive framework governing the use of ALPR by law-enforcement agencies that choose to employ it, Va. Code § 2.2-5517, effective July 1, 2025. That framework regulates use and does not require any locality or agency to acquire or operate ALPR, and permits local policy that is more restrictive so long as it does not conflict with the statute.

(e) The Harrisonburg Police Department has operated approximately thirty automated license plate reader cameras, including fixed and mobile units, positioned along primary routes into and out of the City, including Interstate 81, which capture and retain data concerning vehicles passing those locations.

(f) The Council has determined that the operation of such systems by the City should be discontinued, that any existing contract for such systems should be terminated, and that the City should not acquire, host, fund, or operate such systems or participate in any dragnet vehicle-location surveillance network in the future.

(g) The City of Harrisonburg has the authority to determine how its own funds are appropriated, how its own property and rights-of-way are used, what contracts its agencies enter, and how its own departments, including its police department, operate. This chapter is an exercise of that authority. It governs only the conduct of the City, its agencies, and its officers and employees, and does not regulate private parties.

Section 3. Definitions.

For purposes of this chapter, the following terms have the meanings set forth below:

"Automated License Plate Reader System" or "ALPR System" means any device, camera, or network of cameras, whether fixed, mobile, trailer-mounted, aerial, or vehicle-mounted, together with any associated software or service, that automatically captures, reads, records, or converts to data the license plate, or the make, model, color, or other distinguishing visual characteristics, of passing or parked vehicles, and that stores, compares, indexes, or is capable of comparing such data against any list or database, or that makes such data searchable by plate, location, time, or vehicle attribute. The term includes systems that perform vehicle fingerprinting or object or vehicle recognition regardless of whether a plate is read.

"Mass Surveillance Camera System" means any camera or network of cameras deployed in a public place that, alone or in combination with software or a service, is designed or capable of (i) performing the functions of an ALPR System; (ii) automated recognition, tracking, or matching of vehicles, faces, gait, or other biometric or quasi-biometric identifiers; or (iii) the persistent, indiscriminate recording of a public area for retention and later automated search. The term includes pan-tilt-zoom camera systems integrated with, or feeding data to, an ALPR System or a shared surveillance network.

"Functionally equivalent" means a system that performs any function described in this section, without regard to the vendor, trade name, or product line.

"City Agency" means the City of Harrisonburg, the Council, and every department, office, division, board, commission, authority, and instrumentality under the direction or control of the Council or the City Manager, including the Harrisonburg Police Department, and every officer and employee thereof acting in an official capacity.

"Covered Constitutional Officer" means the Sheriff, the Commonwealth's Attorney, the Clerk of the Circuit Court, and any other independently elected constitutional officer serving the City, and the offices and employees thereof.

"City Resources" means (i) funds appropriated, granted, disbursed, or administered by the City of Harrisonburg; (ii) real property, rights-of-way, poles, structures, or fixtures owned or controlled by the City; (iii) City-owned or City-administered data systems, networks, or storage; and (iv) any contract, procurement, grant, memorandum of understanding, or in-kind support entered into or provided by a City Agency.

"ALPR Data" means any data captured, generated, derived from, or made searchable by an ALPR System or Mass Surveillance Camera System, including plate reads, images, timestamps, geolocation, vehicle-attribute tags, and hot-list hits.

Section 4. Prohibition; City Agencies.

No City Agency shall, directly or through any agent, contractor, vendor, or intergovernmental arrangement:

(a) purchase, lease, accept by donation or grant, install, host, mount, power, connect, operate, or maintain any ALPR System or Mass Surveillance Camera System;

(b) enter into, renew, or extend any contract, subscription, license, or memorandum of understanding for any ALPR System, Mass Surveillance Camera System, or associated data service;

(c) permit any such system to be installed on, powered by, or attached to any real property, right-of-way, pole, structure, or fixture owned or controlled by the City;

(d) access, query, search, receive, store, retain, or use ALPR Data, whether generated locally or obtained from any other agency, jurisdiction, private network, or data broker; or

(e) share, transmit, or provide access to any City-held data for ingestion into any ALPR System or Mass Surveillance Camera System operated by any other party.

Section 5. Appropriations; Property; Constitutional Officers.

(a) No City Resources shall be appropriated, expended, granted, or otherwise provided, in cash or in kind, for the acquisition, installation, operation, maintenance, hosting, powering, data storage, or subscription of any ALPR System or Mass Surveillance Camera System, or for access to ALPR Data, by any person or entity, including any Covered Constitutional Officer.

(b) No City-owned or City-controlled real property, right-of-way, pole, structure, fixture, network, or data system shall be made available, directly or indirectly, for the installation, operation, hosting, or support of any such system.

(c) The Council recognizes that a Covered Constitutional Officer is independently elected and exercises operational discretion not subject to direct command by the Council. This chapter does not purport to direct the internal operations of any Covered Constitutional Officer. Subsections (a) and (b) of this section, and Section 4, apply to the full extent of the Council's authority over City Resources, appropriations, procurement, and property. The Council requests that each Covered Constitutional Officer conform the operations of that office to the policy declared in this chapter, and directs the City Manager to convey this request in writing.

Section 6. Exceptions.

Nothing in this chapter prohibits:

(a) A camera or recording device that does not perform, and is not integrated with any system that performs, license-plate recognition, vehicle fingerprinting, facial or other biometric recognition, or automated database matching, including ordinary building-security cameras, traffic-flow counters that do not retain identifying imagery, and localized point-of-entry access controls;

(b) Body-worn cameras and vehicle dashboard cameras used and retained in connection with a specific, identifiable law-enforcement contact or incident, and not used for persistent dragnet collection or automated plate or biometric search;

(c) A single-purpose device operated for a duration limited to, and geographically confined to, a specific criminal investigation supported by individualized suspicion and, where required, judicial authorization, provided no bulk data is retained beyond the authorized scope;

(d) Any function that a City Agency is affirmatively required to perform by a mandatory provision of state or federal law that leaves the City no discretion, and only to the minimum extent so required; and

(e) Toll-collection, parking-management, or emergency-vehicle-preemption equipment that does not retain, index, or share vehicle-location data for law-enforcement query or cross-agency dissemination.

Section 7. Termination of Existing Contracts and Divestment.

Within thirty (30) days of the effective date of this chapter, the City Manager shall, and shall direct each City Agency to:

(a) cease all operation and querying of any ALPR System, Mass Surveillance Camera System, and ALPR Data;

(b) terminate, or exercise all available rights to terminate or decline renewal of, every contract, subscription, and memorandum of understanding for any ALPR System or Mass Surveillance Camera System, including any existing contract for automated license plate reader services, and shall not renew any such arrangement;

(c) remove, or cause the vendor to remove, all such systems installed on City Resources or otherwise operated by or for the City; and

(d) purge, or direct the vendor to purge and certify the purging of, all ALPR Data in the City's possession or control that is not the subject of an active, individualized criminal investigation or a lawful litigation hold or records-retention obligation, consistent with the Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act, Va. Code §§ 2.2-3800 et seq., and the Virginia Public Records Act, Va. Code §§ 42.1-76 et seq.

Section 8. Transparency and Reporting.

(a) On or before March 1 of each year, the City Manager shall submit to the Council and publish a written report affirming the City's compliance with this chapter, identifying any contract or system terminated or removed, and disclosing any request received from any third party or jurisdiction for City participation in an ALPR or mass surveillance network and the City's response.

(b) The City Manager shall not enter into, and shall report to the Council any solicitation to enter into, any data-sharing arrangement that would place City Resources or City-held data within an ALPR System or Mass Surveillance Camera System.

Section 9. Enforcement.

(a) This chapter may be enforced by an action for declaratory judgment or injunctive relief, or by mandamus, brought in the Circuit Court serving the City of Harrisonburg.

(b) Any violation of this chapter using City Resources is a use of public funds and property contrary to this chapter, and no City officer or employee shall authorize, ratify, or make any expenditure of City Resources in violation of Section 5.

(c) Nothing in this chapter waives, or shall be construed to waive, the sovereign or governmental immunity of the City or any officer or employee, except to the limited extent necessary to permit the relief authorized in subsection (a).

Section 10. Severability.

If any provision of this chapter, or its application to any person or circumstance, is held invalid or preempted, that invalidity shall not affect other provisions or applications that can be given effect without the invalid provision or application, and to this end the provisions of this chapter are severable.

Section 11. Effective Date.

This chapter shall take effect on ____________, except that the termination and divestment obligations of Section 7 shall be completed within the period stated therein.

Adopted by the Council of the City of Harrisonburg, Virginia, this ______ day of ____________, 20.

Mayor

ATTEST:

Clerk of the Council