2026 08 17 38 Public Comment
The short version: A New Hanover County resident's public comment on Flock ALPRs shows local pushback is the front line against normalized license-plate surveillance.
Our Take
Credit to DeFlockILM for keeping a camera rolling on something most county meetings would rather keep quiet: a resident standing up and asking elected officials to justify a network of license plate readers logging every car that passes. This is the unglamorous, essential work of accountability — not a viral exposé, just someone showing up to a commissioners meeting and putting hard questions on the public record.
These local meetings matter more than people realize. Flock's pitch to county governments is almost always the same: a few cameras for public safety, framed as no big deal. But the data doesn't stay small, and the vendor contracts rarely include real oversight. Public comment is often the only moment where a community gets to ask who sees this data, how long it's kept, and whether anyone outside the sheriff's office can audit it before the system quietly expands.
If you want to see whether cameras like these are already tracking roads near you, check our map, and if you're ready to push back the way this commenter did, our take-action page has the tools to help.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of DeFlockILM, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.