School Security Cameras Raise New Questions About Privacy, Access, and Use

Flock Safety cameras have made headlines in recent months over privacy concerns tied to automated license plate readers, including questions about data collection, law enforcement access, and potential misuse.

Now, scrutiny over cameras in schools is extending well beyond license plate readers. Students are petitioning to remove surveillance cameras from campuses. Parents in one Texas district say they were blindsided by cameras placed in classrooms. Elsewhere, parents have advocated for cameras to protect vulnerable students, while schools and public safety agencies are expanding access to live video during emergencies.

As video surveillance becomes more sophisticated and increasingly connected to artificial intelligence and other security systems, school leaders are facing questions about where cameras are used, what they are used for, who has access, and what students and families know about them.

Students Push Back Against Flock Cameras at Schools

At Alpharetta High School in Georgia, two seniors recently launched a petition calling for the removal of Flock Safety cameras from their campus and other schools throughout Fulton County.

The automated license plate readers installed near the school entrance can photograph vehicles and collect information including license plate numbers and travel times. Seniors Henry Jones and Aditya Manchanda said they are concerned about the amount of information the technology can collect about students' movements and the potential for that information to be misused.

“We don’t want students who come to school every day to be monitored — what time they go home, who they go to lunch with,” Manchanda said.

The students have emphasized that their opposition to the cameras does not mean they oppose school security.

“We’re not advocating for a lack of security,” Manchanda said. “We’re advocating for safer standards.”

Fulton County Schools has defended the technology as an important layer of security. The district spent more than $500,000 to install the cameras at every school in 2022 and has pointed to cases in which the technology assisted law enforcement investigations, including the arrest of a suspect following the fatal shooting of a mother outside Palmetto Elementary School in February.

The district has said information collected by the cameras is not sold or shared with third parties, except when it is provided to other law enforcement agencies.

In Colorado, Loveland High School senior Gabe Sayer launched a petition and student-led initiative opposing Flock cameras after five were installed at schools in his district. The cameras have since been disconnected, although the district said the decision was based on cost and performance rather than opposition to the technology.

The student pushback comes as Flock faces wider scrutiny over its automated license plate reader network, including questions about data sharing and several recent cases involving alleged misuse by law enforcement personnel. School Security Leadership has been separately tracking those developments and what K-12 leaders should consider before adopting ALPR technology.

Camera Privacy Concerns Extend Beyond ALPRs

In Fort Worth, Texas, parents have raised concerns about cameras installed in classrooms even though district officials say the video is not recorded.

Fort Worth Independent School District installed webcams in classrooms at several elementary schools participating in its Elevate Model. District officials have said the cameras are intended to support instructional continuity, including allowing students temporarily removed from a classroom to continue watching instruction.

Some parents said they were unaware cameras would be placed inside their children's classrooms and questioned who could access the live feeds and why families had not been informed before the cameras were installed.

While some parents have objected to cameras inside classrooms, other families are advocating for greater camera coverage. In California, parents in Visalia and Bakersfield are pushing for cameras in special education classrooms, arguing that video could help protect students who may be unable to communicate what happens at school. The efforts followed allegations of mistreatment involving students with disabilities, including a Visalia case that prompted a police investigation. Petitions calling for cameras in special education classrooms have received more than 2,700 signatures in Visalia and more than 12,800 in Bakersfield.

District officials have pointed to legal, privacy, and labor considerations surrounding classroom cameras. California law also generally prohibits the use of recording devices in classrooms without the consent of the teacher and principal.

Other states have established specific rules for cameras in special education classrooms. Under Texas law, public schools must install cameras in certain self-contained special education classrooms when requested by a parent, staff member, principal, or school board. The cameras record while students are present, footage is retained for 90 days, and recordings generally cannot be viewed unless an allegation of abuse or neglect is reported.

Camera placement has generated debate in other areas of schools as well. At Solanco High School in Pennsylvania, students have launched competing petitions over a camera overlooking an open handwashing area outside newly renovated private restroom stalls.

One petition calling on the district to reconsider the camera drew roughly 700 signatures within four days. Another, started by a student who cited concerns about vaping, called for the school to keep and expand the new safety measures and received about 100 signatures in its first two days.

District officials have stressed that cameras are not located inside the individual floor-to-ceiling restroom stalls. The camera observes the open sink area, which is visible from a public corridor and which the district treats similarly to other common areas where cameras are used for safety and security.

Today's School Cameras Can Do More Than Record

Security cameras were already in use at 93% of public schools during the 2020-21 school year, according to federal data. What has changed is what cameras and the systems connected to them can do.

During a recent ZeroNow webinar on video surveillance in school security, three National Council of School Safety Directors (NCSSD) members discussed how camera technology and its use in schools are changing.

Jill Renihan, education segment development manager at Axis Communications and a former school security director, said many schools continue to rely on cameras for their traditional forensic purpose of determining what happened after an incident and providing relevant information to law enforcement. Newer video analytics can also identify activity and bring it to the attention of school personnel in real time.

Randy Welch, senior director for vertical growth and strategy at Motorola Solutions, said schools should start by identifying the specific problem each camera is intended to address rather than simply deciding they need more cameras.

“For every camera, ask: What are we going to use this for? What specific purpose do we want it to serve? Then design the system around those needs,” he said.

Available capabilities can include video analytics, automated alerts, license plate recognition, facial recognition, object detection, and searches of recorded footage.

In California's Chico Unified School District, school board members said they were unaware of some of the features included in a $1.9 million camera system when they unanimously approved the contract in December 2025. The system, which included hundreds of cameras, offered capabilities including facial recognition, license plate identification, and text-based video search.

The contract had been approved as part of the board's consent calendar without discussion. Board members later said information presented with the agenda item identified the cost and number of cameras but did not clearly identify all of the technology's capabilities.

NCSSD members have raised similar questions about whether approval of a camera system should automatically extend to capabilities such as facial recognition, biometrics, person tracking, license plate recognition, audio, or other AI-powered features.

During a discussion about a request to install third-party cameras on school property, members recommended that districts separately address which analytics and capabilities are permitted and whether additional approval is required before new features are enabled.

Who Should Have Access to School Camera Systems?

Questions about school camera use also extend to who should be able to access live and recorded footage. That issue has generated recent discussion among NCSSD members. One member said his district's security department had historically handled requests for camera footage, allowing the department to maintain control over access to and distribution of footage. More recently, the district's human resources and legal departments requested direct access to the camera system, in part because HR believed requests for footage were taking too long.

The member said most requests were already fulfilled within 24 hours and expressed concern that expanding access could undermine trust built with employee unions around the district's use of cameras for investigations rather than routine employee monitoring.

Other NCSSD members largely supported maintaining a centralized, policy-driven process for accessing and exporting footage. Members described practices in which principals or administrators may have view-only access to cameras in their own buildings, while downloading and exporting footage remains restricted to security, public safety, IT, or other designated personnel.

Members cited privacy, chain of custody, public records and student records requirements, staff trust, and potential misuse as reasons for limiting access. One district policy shared in the discussion requires requests to review previous footage to go through building or district administration and states that unauthorized dissemination of camera images or video can violate district policy and result in discipline, including termination.

Recent criminal cases have also involved alleged misuse or improper placement of cameras at schools. In Arizona, a former Corona del Sol High School employee has been accused of using the school's security camera system to watch students changing clothes and has pleaded not guilty to voyeurism charges. In West Virginia, the principal of Brooke High School was charged following an investigation into hidden cameras discovered at the school. That investigation remains ongoing.

Access questions can also arise when outside organizations want to install or use cameras on school property. In one NCSSD discussion, a member whose private school rents athletic facilities to an outside organization questioned whether the organization should be permitted to install its own surveillance equipment. Concerns included who could view recordings containing students and staff, how long footage would be retained, cybersecurity, chain of custody, and the school's control over deletion or sharing.

Schools Are Defining When and How Cameras Can Be Used

Some districts and public safety agencies are expanding the use of cameras while setting parameters around when and how they can be used.

In Calhoun County, Mich., more than 1,000 cameras across 52 schools have been connected to the county's emergency dispatch center as part of its Safe Schools Initiative. The project, supported by a $1.7 million Department of Justice grant, allows dispatchers to access live school camera feeds during emergencies.

When a 911 call, school panic button activation, or other emergency triggers the system, dispatchers can see camera views near the location of the incident along with maps for first responders. County officials said authorities do not record the camera feeds themselves. If law enforcement needs previously recorded footage, it must request it from school officials.

The system was used during an incident involving an aggressive student near the end of the previous school year. When dispatchers could not reach a school resource officer by radio, they used the camera system to determine that the officer had the situation under control.

Other camera systems are being used for more specific purposes. In Connecticut, some school districts are using cameras to identify motorists who illegally pass stopped school buses. The enforcement cameras are activated when a school bus stops and its stop arm is extended. The cameras capture vehicles that illegally pass the bus, and the footage can then be reviewed for enforcement.

Camera Policies Need to Keep Pace With Technology

During the school video surveillance webinar, Renihan said districts should consider who can access live and recorded footage, how video is used, where it is stored, how long it is retained, and what individual users are permitted to do with it. Schools should also determine how original video will be preserved following an incident or accident.

Welch cautioned against waiting until an incident occurs to make those decisions.

“You should have a board policy for every single one of those things,” he said, pointing to retention, camera outages, access to footage, and circumstances in which video may become an educational record under FERPA.

NCSSD members have raised many of the same considerations while developing and updating their own camera procedures. In one discussion, members identified authorized access, storage and retention, preservation, law enforcement requests, external sharing, cybersecurity, vendor access, auditing, analytics, AI, biometrics, and transportation systems among the issues that modern camera procedures may need to address.

Simon Renouf, vice president of engineering at Omnilert, described the goal as proportionality.

“I don't think security automatically trumps privacy by any means, but by the same token, privacy doesn't require us to abandon useful security technologies,” he said.

Renouf also recommended limiting the information systems collect and who can access it.

“Don't store information you don't need to store, and don't make it available to people who don't absolutely need it,” he said.