Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs talks flock cameras
The short version: Knox County's mayor says the quiet part out loud: Flock cameras are already running, and privacy policy is an afterthought being bolted on after the fact.
Our Take
Credit to WBIR Channel 10 for getting Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs on camera talking about the county's Flock Safety network. What stands out isn't that a mayor supports ALPRs — plenty do — it's that he's publicly acknowledging the need for a privacy policy now, which almost always means the cameras went up first and the guardrails are being drafted after the fact. That sequence is the pattern across the country: deploy, defend, then draft rules once residents start asking questions.
A 'privacy policy' for license plate readers can mean almost anything, from a real retention cap and audit trail to a toothless PDF nobody enforces. The questions that actually matter are concrete: who can query the database, how long is data kept, is it shared with other agencies or federal immigration enforcement, and is there independent audit logging that catches misuse rather than relying on self-reporting. Knox County residents should be asking Jacobs and the county commission for the specifics, not just the headline that a policy exists.
If you're in Knox County or anywhere else wondering whether this kind of tracking infrastructure is already in your neighborhood, check our camera map to see what's been documented nearby, and use our take-action resources if you want to push your local government for real transparency before the next system goes live unchecked.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WBIR Channel 10, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.