Cherokee County deputy arrested after allegedly using license plate reader for personal reasons

Our Take

Credit to 11Alive for digging into this one: a Cherokee County deputy allegedly tapped into license plate reader data for personal reasons over a span of more than two years before anyone caught on. That's the part that should bother you most — not just that someone misused the system, but that it apparently took years to notice.

This is the recurring problem with ALPR networks like Flock Safety's. Departments sell these systems to city councils as narrowly-targeted tools for solving specific crimes, but once the cameras are up and the database is running, the access controls and audit trails are often an afterthought. A badge gets you in, and from there it's on the honor system. When that system fails, it's rarely a department that catches it fast — it's usually a lucky break, a nosy journalist, or a victim who put the pieces together.

Every one of these stories is a preview of what happens when you build a searchable record of everywhere everyone drives and hand the keys to hundreds of people with minimal oversight. If there's a flock of cameras clocking your plate in your own town, you deserve to know about it — check our camera map to see what's nearby, and visit our take-action page if you want to push back on surveillance creep in your community.