Hopewell VA PD

Transparency Portal

Last Updated: Sun Sep 21 2025
Overview
Hopewell VA PD uses Flock Safety technology to capture objective evidence without compromising on individual privacy. Hopewell VA PD utilizes retroactive search to solve crimes after they've occurred. Additionally, Hopewell VA PD utilizes real time alerting of hotlist vehicles to capture wanted criminals. In an effort to ensure proper usage and guardrails are in place, they have made the below policies and usage statistics available to the public.
Policies
What's Detected
License Plates, Vehicles
What's Not Detected
Facial recognition, People, Gender, Race
Acceptable Use Policy
Data is used for law enforcement purposes only. Data is owned by Hopewell VA PD and is never sold to 3rd parties.
Prohibited Uses
Immigration enforcement, traffic enforcement, harassment or intimidation, usage based solely on a protected class (i.e. race, sex, religion), Personal use.
Access Policy
All system access requires a valid reason and is stored indefinitely.
Hotlist Policy
Hotlist hits are required to be human verified prior to action.
Usage
Data retention (in days)
21 days
Number of LPR and other cameras
40
Hotlists Alerted On
NCMEC Amber Alert, NCIC - VSP
Vehicles detected in the last 30 days
174,012
Hotlist hits in the last 30 days
2,259
Searches in the last 30 days
95
Additional Info
Hopewell PD's ALPR Policy
General Order OPR 02-12 FLOCK LPR Systems Purpose: The use of License Plate Recognition (LPR) Equipment is intended to provide sworn law enforcement personnel with an automated method of identifying vehicles and license plates that have a specific interest to law enforcement. The use of LPR equipment shall be limited to law enforcement purposes only and deployed in a manner consistent with this policy. I. Definitions A. FLOCK Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) Falcon System- Equipment consisting of fixed location camera(s), a central processing unit (CPU), camera/power/data wires, and software used to automatically send a data signal to an off-site server, recognize and interpret the characters on vehicle license plates, and vehicle descriptors (color, style, make, model). This data is then compared against a known list of license plates bearing some significance to law enforcement. B. Hot List- A database populated with items of specific concern to the investigative and/or enforcement interests of law enforcement in the City of Hopewell. This may include, but is not limited to, Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) watch lists, sex offender registry, stolen/wanted vehicles, and license plates, wanted and missing persons, cautions, and license plates associated with Amber Alerts or various watch lists provided for law enforcement purposes. 07-10.2 C. Download- Transfer of data from the Virginia State Police database consisting of license plate-associated data. This download is done automatically through the FLOCK LPR off-site servers. D. Notifications- Also known as a HIT. A positive indication notification, by email/text/app, is a potential match between data on the HOT LIST and a license plate scanned by the LPR system. A hit IS NOT conclusive confirmation that a license plate is wanted and additional investigation is ALWAYS warranted when a hit is indicated. E. LPR Generated Data- All information, including location, date, and time of a license plate encounter and any LPR-generated digital photographic image(s) of the license plate and vehicle generated entirely through the use of/and by the LPR equipment. F. LPR Coordinator- Designee in the department responsible for managing LPR users. Responsibilities include instructing individual users on the proper procedures for operating the LPR software, and adding and removing authorized users to the server. Ensures that users are updating the electronic Hot List and entries are up to date on a regular basis. The Support Services Commander will be the agencys primary LPR coordinator. II. Procedures A. LPR Users 1. All users shall receive training from the LPR coordinator or designee prior to using the LPR system. 2. It shall be the responsibility of each LPR user to verify the most current Hot List. 3. ALPR Hits do not, by themselves, constitute reasonable suspicion for a vehicular stop. Upon receiving a notification, the user should determine the accuracy of the Hit. The LPR user will visually verify that the actual vehicle tag and the read on the LPR screen are the same (same state, same numerical/alphabetic characters). 4. The user will confirm the Hit is currently active by running the information through NCIC/VCIN. 5. The user will ensure that they are in a position to safely determine the 07-10.3 accuracy of the Hit in accordance with department policy OPR 01-01 Emergency Vehicle Operations. 6. Additional information may be entered into the LPR system at any time. Broadcast information received during a tour of duty should be manually entered immediately upon receipt by the LPR user. The reason for the entry should be noted in the entry screen (i.e. stolen vehicle, missing person, abduction, Amber Alert, robbery suspect, etc), as well as the case number (if the incident occurred in Hopewell), the date of entry, and contact information for the entering officer. 7. Upon completing a manual entry, the user should query the LPR data to determine if the license plate was scanned previously. Users are required to remove Hot List entries at the completion of their investigation. 8. Users may access data when investigating any specific law- enforcement purpose where the data may be able to provide suspect information. Data can be searched and filtered based on vehicle type, camera location, and date/time. All searches of data will require a search reason. Officers shall use the full CAD event/report number (if available) or related nature (shots fired, stolen vehicle, crime solvers tip, etc.) as their search reason. III. Data Retention, Access, and Dissemination 1. Access to the Falcon LPR systems is achieved through individualized login to Flocks web-based server. Once logged in, officers will be able to receive hot list alerts within the system and can view and search data. Officers will be required to enter a search reason for auditing purposes. 2. Flock is Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) compliant, and all information is encrypted at rest in the cloud using Amazon Web Services (AWS) Key Management Service (KMS) Keys, which use Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2 validated hardware security modules to generate and store the keys. All logins and queries will be stored and monitored including: a. Username b. Date c. Time d. Purpose of query e. License plate and other elements used to query the system. 3. Flock Group Inc., the ALPR vendor, will store the data (data hosting) and 07-10.4 ensure proper maintenance and security of data stored in their cloud-based system. Flock will also oversee purging data at the end of the 21-day storage period. Users are responsible for extracting, downloading, and archiving footage from Flock on its own storage devices for auditing, prosecutorial, and administrative purposes. 4. The LPR System Coordinator is responsible for the management of user accounts. Authorized users shall be limited to current employees who are legally authorized to review LPR data for crime prevention and detection purposes. 5. Each authorized user agrees that LPR-generated data, Hot List information, and, networking resources are to be used solely for law enforcement purposes only and consistent with the law. Authorized users shall not use or share the information for any unethical, illegal, or criminal purpose. Under no circumstances shall officers share LPR data with any non-law enforcement agency or out of state law enforcement agency. Any requests for LPR information from a non-law enforcement agency shall be forwarded to the office of the Chief of Police or his designee. 6. ALPR data is considered a record of a criminal investigation and is confidential and not a public record. Data shall not be disclosed outside of the Hopewell Police Department except for safety purposes pursuant to a written or electronic request from another requesting law-enforcement agency. The request must indicate the agencys incident number and why the agency is requesting the APLR data, i.e., missing person, wanted subject, stolen vehicle, etc. Any Flock system administrator (Lieutenant and above) can authorize to release of the requested information after reviewing and approving the request. 7. On a daily basis, The ALPR Coordinator shall ensure the current Hot List from the Virginia State Police Fusion Center has been updated through the automatic interface. The hotlist will be update at a minimum once every 24 hours or as soon a practicable per the code of Virginia, § 2.2-5517 8. LPR users shall not access information in an LPR system by using a name or password that was assigned to another person, including another user. 9. All FOIA requests for ALPR data (if available) will be submitted and evaluated through the City of Hopewell Attorneys Office. 10.The Hopewell Police Department will publicly post its ALPR policy and the results of their annual reports. 11.The Hopewell Police Department will report to the Virginia State Police each year by April 1 the use of the ALPR system during the preceding calendar 07-10.5 year, including the following date: a. Total number of cameras owned or leased. b. A list of all state and federal databases which data was compared. c. Total number of searches, including purposes of the search and offense type. d. List