A petition to ban Flock cameras in our area is growing! #charlottenc #localnews #broadcasttraining

Our Take

Credit to Media Arts Training Centers for putting a camera on a story that too often gets buried in city council agendas: residents in the Charlotte, NC area organizing a petition against Flock Safety's automated license plate readers. We don't have the petition's full text or signature count in front of us, but the fact that it's "growing," as the title says, matters more than the specifics right now. It means ordinary people are noticing these cameras, asking who's watching the data, and deciding they don't like the answer.

This is exactly the pattern we track across the country: a city quietly signs a contract with Flock, cameras go up on neighborhood streets and intersections, and only later do residents learn their comings and goings are being logged, timestamped, and shared across a nationwide network they never voted on. A local petition is one of the few tools regular people have to force a public conversation before that network becomes permanent infrastructure.

If you're in the Charlotte area, check our camera map to see what's already been deployed near you, and head to our take-action page for templates and steps other communities have used to push back before contracts renew.