Sheriff Craig: Flock cameras 'are out' at end of contract
The Flock cameras have recently been a topic of discussion throughout the country and Southwest Virginia because of their Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) capabilities, which citizens say result in constant surveillance and tracking.
Floyd County Sheriff Brian Craig said late last week that once the agreement between the Floyd County Sheriff's Office and Flock Safety expires at the end of August, the cameras will be removed.
"When the contract ends, they are out," he said.
The Flock cameras have recently been a topic of discussion throughout the country and Southwest Virginia because of their Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) capabilities, which citizens say result in constant surveillance and tracking. While their original purpose is to help law enforcement agencies work together to locate the subjects of Silver/Amber alerts, stolen vehicles, and more, the cameras do not differentiate between vehicles driven by prospective suspects and those driven by every day commuters and residents. They log the data of all passing vehicles and store it for 21 days.
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There are four installed throughout Floyd County — one at at Simmons Grocery on Route 8, one past Outer Space on the south side of town, one near the Floyd Laundromat, and one near G.J. Ingram and Sons, according to FCSO Chief Deputy Chad Harris.
At the June 23 Floyd County Board of Supervisors meeting, about a dozen Floyd residents spoke out against the cameras. Many noted the significance of having this conversation while celebrating the 250th anniversary of the nation’s independence from Great Britain.
“Surveillance systems rarely remain limited to their original purpose,” Jacey Clay said at the meeting. “What begins as a tool to locate stolen vehicles will eventually be used to monitor political activity, religious participation, protests, healthcare visits, and other lawful activities by our citizens. This issue is not whether today's officials will misuse these systems; it's when.”
Brandon Decker said the Founding Fathers would be mortified "to learn of this system and its implementation within the nation that they strove so hard to forge. They would call this intolerable, at the very least…. For every criminal or suspected criminal that it reports, there are hundreds if not thousands of us that it's reporting continuously.”
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The private grant, which paid for the Flock cameras in Floyd County, was awarded in 2023 but not implemented until 2024, County Administrator Kim Chiddo said last week. The two-year contract expires at the end of next month (August 2026), at which point, Sheriff Brian Craig said, the system will no longer be active in Floyd.
Read more about the logistics of the grant being awarded to FCSO here.
Learn more about the DeFlock movement, which maps ALPRs and is advocating for localities to reject their use, at www.deflock.org.
Find more information about Flock Safety at www.flocksafety.com.
Mark J. Harris
Floyd County Farm Bureau
(540) 745-2021
335 E. Oxford St.
Floyd VA 24091
