Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin is working with Democrats who control the General Assembly to craft some rules for license plate readers.
A company known as Flock Safety will not be able to get a contract with the Virginia State Police to put license plate readers on Virginia highways. And local law enforcement officials will not be able to keep data for 30 days, although they can keep it for 21 days. That’s the compromise legislation the governor is signing.
"At a time when the federal government and other states are very interested in surveilling people for reasons including immigration and reproductive care, that it's really important to limit the ability of law enforcement to surveil people," says Rob Poggenklass at Justice Forward Virginia.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell says this new law will create much needed rules for a system that's now essentially the Wild West.
"Right now, there's no consequences for improper authorizing the data because there's really no rules around authorizing the data," Surovell says. "Only law enforcement will be able to access the data for certain, very specific reasons; there will be consequences if that's violated. The data sharing rules basically are a lot more restrictive, so the data just can’t be handed over to ICE when anybody feels like it."
The new law will go into effect this summer on July the first.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
