Chatham County weighs future of Flock cameras

Our Take

Credit to ABC11 for putting a camera on something most county commissions would rather handle quietly: a vote on whether to keep feeding a private company a stream of every driver's location data. That Chatham County leaders are even having this conversation in public is a win, because in most jurisdictions these contracts get renewed on autopilot, year after year, with zero public debate.

What's notable here isn't just that residents are uneasy — it's that "privacy concerns" are finally being treated as a legitimate policy question rather than background noise. Flock's pitch is always the same: a few stolen cars recovered, a few Amber Alerts resolved. What rarely gets mentioned in the sales deck is the permanent, searchable log of where everyone drives, available to any agency with a login, with audit trails that are often thin and retention policies that keep growing.

Chatham County is a good test case for whether local pushback can actually slow this stuff down, or whether it just produces a round of reassurances and a renewed contract six months later. If you live near one of these systems, check the map to see what's already watching your streets, and head to take action for ways to make your voice heard before your own county's vote happens.