NC town rejects Flock cameras after 60-day trial | WSOC-TV

Our Take

Credit to WSOCTV9 for covering a story that doesn't get nearly enough airtime: a small North Carolina town actually tried Flock Safety's ALPR cameras, looked at the results, and said no. Catawba's police department got its 60-day pilot, the town council weighed it, and the cameras came down. That's the system working the way it's supposed to — a trial period with a real off-ramp, not a rubber-stamped forever-contract signed after one slick sales pitch from a Flock rep.

This matters because the usual pattern across the country is the opposite: departments quietly adopt Flock, costs balloon, retention policies get stretched, and data-sharing agreements with other agencies (including federal ones) pile up before residents even know the cameras are reading every plate that drives through town. Catawba's trial-and-reject approach shows that communities can ask hard questions about cost, efficacy, and privacy before locking themselves into a surveillance dragnet that's hard to unwind once it's networked into a statewide or national system.

If you want to know whether your own town has Flock cameras already installed, check our map, and if you'd rather your city follow Catawba's lead instead of the usual quiet rollout, our take-action page has what you need to get the question in front of your council before the vote happens without you.