WECT INVESTIGATES: County Canceled Its Flock Cameras... So Why Are They Still There?
The short version: New Hanover County canceled its Flock contract, but WECT News 6 found the cameras — and the surveillance — aren't actually gone for months.
Our Take
Credit to WECT News 6 for asking the obvious follow-up question: if a county votes to kill a surveillance contract, why are the cameras still bolted to the poles? Flock's answer — up to two months for removal — is a tidy reminder of how one-sided these deployments can be. Installation happens fast, often with little public debate. Decommissioning happens on the vendor's timeline, not the community's.
That gap matters because every day those cameras stay powered on, they're still scanning plates, logging locations, and feeding data into a network that doesn't answer to local voters. A 'cancellation' on paper means nothing if the hardware keeps watching. It's a pattern we see nationwide: elected officials assume ending a contract flips a switch, when in reality the surveillance infrastructure lingers, and so does the data trail it already built.
If you want to see whether your own neighborhood has Flock cameras still running — canceled contract or not — check our map, and if your local government is debating these systems, use our take-action resources to push for real accountability, not just a vote on paper.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WECT News 6, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.