Syracuse University no longer has city approval to put Flock Safety license plate readers above city right of ways. Credit: Patrick McCarthy | Central Current

Editor’s note: Syracuse University spokeswoman Sarah Scalese on Sunday — after the story’s publication — told Central Current that SU has so far installed and begun operating two Flock Safety automatic license plate readers. Scalese said SU’s other six readers are “all going through the permitting and/or install phases.” Scalese again did not respond to questions about the locations of the readers.

The students and families flooding Syracuse’s university neighborhood for move-in weekend may not have noticed the Syracuse Police Department license plate readers surveilling their vehicles’ movements. 

They almost certainly didn’t know that their destination, Syracuse University, may have surveilled them, too.

Syracuse University says it is installing AI license plate readers to surveil the movements of people on or near its campus — but won’t say whether the cameras are yet operational. 

The university’s new automatic license plate readers will record each vehicle that passes through their field of vision, documenting each license plate, car make and color. Software then compiles that information for storage in a database, where it will remain for 30 days, according to SU spokesperson Sarah Scalese. 

Scalese did not answer several questions from a Central Current reporter, including whether the university has installed the readers, when the readers will become operational, and the location of the readers.

SU partnered with Flock Safety, a company that is facing a national reckoning over its business and data-sharing practices, for its new AI cameras. 

Through thousands of similar contracts with local law enforcement agencies and private businesses, the company has developed a privately owned national network of surveillance. The company has insisted that it doesn’t share access to that network with federal agencies.

But in August, investigative reporters with Channel 9 News in Colorado revealed that Flock had allowed Customs and Border Protection to create a Flock account and invite local law enforcement agencies to share data. The Loveland Police Department — which reportedly opted into sharing data with Flock’s national network of local law enforcement agencies — accepted CBP’s invitation. 

“All Flock customers own and control the data collected by our technology,” a Flock spokesperson told Central Current after Channel 9 Colorado reported on CBP’s access to Flock’s systems. “Only the customer can choose whether or not to share their data with any other law enforcement agency; Flock never sells customer data, and can only share customer data with an explicit customer request.”

Flock has since said it shut off federal agencies’ access to its network, but the company’s statements have done little to quell a growing storm of criticism.

As Congress conducts an investigation into Flock and some communities terminate their contracts with the company, SU is moving forward with its Flock license plate reader “pilot program.”

“This technology will support our Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) ongoing efforts to enhance campus safety, deter crime, and support investigations,” Scalese said in a statement in June, adding that the DPS investigators can download and store data longer than a month if deemed necessary for an investigation.

Central Current in August asked Syracuse University if it was aware of Flock’s reported conduct, and Congress’s open investigation into the company. 

SU insisted its community should trust Flock’s statements disavowing federal collaboration.

“Law enforcement agencies do not have automatic access to our data,” Scalese said. “Flock has suspended ICE’s access to its system and has also disabled auto-sharing rights to ensure that all clients, including Syracuse University, retain approval rights for any ICE data requests.” 

Scalese, though, acknowledged that ICE and other federal immigration agencies can issue a judicial subpoena to Flock or SU to obtain Syracuse drivers’ data.

Asked if the university intended to notify its community about its intentions to surveil vehicular movements on and near campus, Scalese pointed to a short blog post on the university’s website which provides sparse details about the scope of SU’s new surveillance system. The university published the blog post the same day a Central Current reporter requested comment from the university about the license plate readers and Flock’s ongoing controversies. 

SU plans to mount eight Flock Safety readers in total, according to Scalese — two of which will be on city property. SU did not share the locations of its readers but city records show the two readers on city property are located on “Waverly Avenue, between Crouse and Walnut Avenues.”

“The locations were chosen based on safety priorities near campus and are being installed with City of Syracuse approval,” Scalese said.

The Syracuse Common Council on May 27 unanimously approved SU’s plan to mount two automatic license plate readers on city property. 

That same day, investigative reporting from 404 Media showed how ICE agents were leveraging Flock’s network, potentially violating New York’s “shield” laws in the process. Local police officers searched Flock’s country-spanning web of databases on behalf of agents from ICE and related federal immigration agencies that did not have contracts with Flock.

The controversy hit home in July, when Central Current reported that the Syracuse Police Department had ‘inadvertently’ opted into opening its Flock database to thousands of law enforcement agencies around the country. The department operates 13 license plate readers, but had failed to lock down access to the data the readers collected on drivers in Syracuse.

Out-of-city actors searched Syracuse’s Flock database 4.4 million times since July 2024, when the department first installed the plate readers, according to Shoff.

Kieran Coffey, a spokesperson for Syracuse police, said at the time that SPD was not aware of any requests from federal immigration officials for Syracuse’s license plate reader data.

Syracuse drivers’ data was included in 2,097 immigration-related searches by other municipalities, Coffey said. 

Jay Stanley, a senior analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, has for years warned communities against allowing their police departments to contract with Flock Safety. 

In 2022, when Flock was emerging as an industry leader in license plate readers, Stanley wrote that the company “…is building a form of mass surveillance unlike any seen before in American life.” A year later, he warned that federal agencies could use Flock’s tools to monitor individuals’ everyday movements throughout the country. Two weeks ago, Stanley detailed Flock’s intention to transform its existing license plate readers into video surveillance cameras. 

Stanley believes it is egregious that a non-governmental entity like SU — which touted the thousands of international students that made up 20% of its class of 2024 — would install surveillance tools in an immigrant-friendly city where more than 1 in 10 people are foreign-born.

“Putting up Flock cameras at this moment in time is definitely a big middle finger to any immigrants, immigrant populations,” Stanley said.

Scalese in a statement to Central Current dismissed the implication that outside actors could leverage SU’s license plate readers “for personal surveillance.” 

Critics have said Flock’s license plate reader network is perfectly primed for the “personal surveillance” Scalese denounced. 

The United States representatives who opened a Congressional investigation into Flock explicitly cite the company for “…enabling invasive surveillance practices that threaten the privacy, safety, and civil liberties of women, immigrants, and other vulnerable Americans.”

On Flock’s own website, the company offers a feature that sends notifications to police departments when Flock’s AI-algorithm determines an individual’s movements are “suspicious,” according to a recent ACLU report.

The company is also currently piloting a new tool called Nova, which Forbes on Wednesday called Flock’s “crown jewel to be.” Nova is designed to collect personal information to supplement vehicular data obtained through Flock’s license plate readers, potentially linking plates to individuals, and even their friends and family.

While Coffey, the Syracuse police spokesman, said the department does not intend to purchase and Nova, Scalese did not rule out the university investing in the add-on.

“The University is monitoring the development of this platform but has made no decisions regarding its adoption or use,” Scalese said.

Even without Nova, Flock’s ever-expanding everyday surveillance of ordinary citizens is shifting police departments’ approach to enforcing law, according to the ACLU. Technologies once marketed as reactive tools are now generating suspicion rather than investigating it, Stanley said.

Other advocacy groups have for years argued that license plate readers don’t enhance public safety, but rather, threaten safety. 

Last year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation detailed how law enforcement agencies that collect data from license plate readers are frequently targeted by hackers. More recently, the New York Civil Liberties Union outlined how ALPRs can help law enforcement agents in anti-abortion states to surveil abortion-seekers.

Stanley and the ACLU are concerned that Flock’s license plate readers can be used to target other vulnerable Americans, like protesters, immigrants, and undocumented people. Beyond that, Stanley said the tools are intrusive and “rude.”

He compared each license plate reader to a person standing on a street corner with a pen and notepad, diligently recording each passing vehicle’s license plate, color, make, occupants, bumper stickers, and other defining details.

“If they put 20 cops out along the street to do that and keep notes on everybody,” Stanley said, “I think everybody would be pretty offended.”

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Patrick McCarthy is a staff reporter at Central Current covering government and politics. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Maxwell and Newhouse Schools, McCarthy was born and raised in Syracuse and...