Rankings

Same cameras — a different right to ask.

We put the same six questions to public universities in other states. The technology looks the same nearly everywhere: the same license-plate readers, reading plates and not faces, holding the data for a matter of weeks. What changes is whether you can compel an answer — and in most states, unlike Pennsylvania, you can.

How to read this. Six questions, five schools, judged on public transparency — not on how much surveillance a campus runs. Every filled answer traces to something the school itself publishes, or to on-the-record reporting; answers we searched for but couldn’t find are marked “not located,” which isn’t proof they don’t exist. This is a starting set — five universities across five states. Policies change — verify current details before relying on this. General information, not legal advice.

Checked July 2026

The six questions

What we asked of every school

The same questions we ask of Pennsylvania campuses, applied nationally. They move from “is there a policy at all” to the one that decides whether you can ever compel an answer.

  • Is there a public camera or surveillance policy? A written, findable policy — not just cameras on poles.
  • Any position on facial recognition? Whether the school says it uses, limits, or won’t use face-matching.
  • Are automated license-plate readers disclosed? The pole- and car-mounted cameras that log every plate that passes.
  • How long is footage kept? The retention window before recordings are overwritten.
  • Does the open-records law apply? Whether a public-records request can compel an answer — the spine of this comparison.
  • Is there a published privacy or data notice? A notice telling you what’s collected about you and how it’s handled.

The comparison

Five public universities, five states

A starting set, checked against each institution’s own materials. The common thread: every one is a government agency subject to its state’s records law — the opposite of Pennsylvania’s state-related exemption.

InstitutionCamera policyFacial recognitionALPRRetentionOpen-records lawPrivacy notice
UCLAUniversity of California, Los AngelesPublic · California Published · Policy 1331 No live FR1 Published · Policy 1341 30–90 days1 Subject · CPRA6 Published7
UFUniversity of FloridaPublic · Florida Disclosed8 States none4 Published · LPR4 ~30 days8 Subject · FL records6 Published9
UNCUNC–Chapel HillPublic · North Carolina Published2 States none2 Flock · 23 cams2 30 days2 Subject · NC PRA2 Published10
UTDUT DallasPublic · Texas Not located States none3 Flock · portal3 Not located Subject · TX PIA6 Published11
UWUW–MadisonPublic · Wisconsin Disclosed · FAQ5 States none5 Flock · ended Jul 20265 Not located Subject · WI records6 Published12
Discloses. Publishes a policy, states a position, or is subject to open-records law — the accountable end. Third-party vendor. A private company (Flock) runs the license-plate system and holds the data — not the university. Silent / exempt. No public stance where one is expected, or exempt from the open-records law. Not located. We searched and couldn’t find it — not proof it doesn’t exist.

Reading the columns. Camera policy asks whether a written policy is published, not whether cameras exist. ALPR is automated license-plate readers; the circle marks who operates them — green for a university-run system or none confirmed, amber for a third-party vendor (Flock), which holds the plate data regardless of how openly the program is disclosed. Open-records law is whether a public-records request can compel documents — here, every school is a public agency subject to its state’s records law, the reverse of Pennsylvania’s state-related exemption. Verdicts reflect what could be located from public sources, not the full extent of any program.As of July 2026 — verify current details before relying on this. General information, not legal advice.

What it shows

The exemption stops at the state line

The tool is nearly everywhere. Flock license-plate readers now ring public campuses coast to coast — UNC–Chapel Hill, UT Dallas, the University of Florida, and UW–Madison all run them — and the systems behave the same way wherever they go: they read plates, not faces, and hold the data for a matter of weeks. On the surface, a student at any of these schools faces roughly the same cameras a Pitt student does.

What differs first is posture. Some schools publish a detailed account of their program — UW–Madison keeps a public FAQ, and UCLA’s written camera policy goes so far as to bar live facial recognition outright. Others disclose almost nothing until they’re pushed: UNC refused to hand over its Flock contract, telling a newspaper there were no responsive records, until a media attorney intervened and the university produced them.

But the deeper difference isn’t the campus — it’s the law standing behind it. In every state on this table, the public university is a government agency squarely subject to the state’s public-records law, so a request can ultimately compel the documents, as the UNC episode shows. That is precisely what Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities are largely exempt from. Put plainly: a student at UNC, Florida, or UW–Madison has a legal right to ask that a student at Pitt, Penn State, Temple, or Lincoln does not. The Pennsylvania Campuses table is the other half of this story.

This is a starting set — five universities across five states, checked against each institution’s own materials as of July 2026. We’ll keep adding schools and states, and the interesting cases will be the exceptions: a state that shields campus-police records even though it’s otherwise open, or a school that publishes far more than the law requires.

The Pennsylvania table → ALPRs near our campus → Privacy by state →
Sources & notes

Every documented fact carries a number that matches the superscript in the table above. A cell showing a dashed circle with no number is a finding of absence — we searched (as of July 2026) and could not locate it — so there is no document to link.

  1. UCLA — Policy 133, Safety and Security Camera Systems: facial-recognition technology “will not be used for live scanning,” and recorded images are kept no less than 30 and no more than 90 days. Automated license-plate readers are governed separately by UCLA Policy 134, a university-run system operated by Events & Transportation for parking management. adminpolicies.ucla.edu (Policy 133) · Policy 134
  2. UNC–Chapel Hill — Published Security Camera Policy; a Feb 2024 contract installed 23 Flock license-plate readers on campus (Flock states its readers use no facial recognition); NC law caps ALPR retention at 90 days and the campus system holds plates about 30. The university initially refused to release the Flock contract, citing no responsive records, until a media attorney forced disclosure. policies.unc.edu · GovTech / News & Observer
  3. UT Dallas — The University Police Department publishes an automated license-plate-reader (Flock) information page; Flock states its readers do not perform facial recognition. police.utdallas.edu
  4. University of Florida — Publishes a license-plate-reader page under its campus Security and Safety Plan; the readers capture vehicle data only, not faces (the system operator is not identified in public sources). security.businessaffairs.ufl.edu
  5. UW–Madison — UWPD publishes a detailed Flock FAQ: eight cameras, access restricted to department personnel and logged and audited, and explicitly no facial recognition. uwpd.wisc.edu
  6. Open-records law — Unlike Pennsylvania’s largely-exempt “state-related” universities, public universities in these states are government agencies generally subject to their state’s public-records law (California’s CPRA, the North Carolina Public Records Act, the Texas Public Information Act, Florida’s public-records law, and Wisconsin’s public-records law). The UNC contract dispute [2] shows the law reaching a campus in practice. Compare the Pennsylvania exemption on our Pennsylvania Campuses page.
  7. UCLA — Official University Privacy Policy & Terms of Use, covering personal information collected through UCLA websites. ucla.edu
  8. University of Florida — Security & Surveillance Cameras page: the camera system runs on the Genetec Security Center platform and footage is centrally retained about 30 days. security.businessaffairs.ufl.edu
  9. University of Florida — Online/Internet Privacy Statement, maintained by the UF Privacy Compliance Office. privacy.ufl.edu
  10. UNC–Chapel Hill — University Online Privacy Statement (Institutional Privacy Office). unc.edu
  11. UT Dallas — Privacy at UT Dallas, the university’s website privacy notice. utdallas.edu
  12. UW–Madison — University Privacy Notice. wisc.edu

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