Flock Cameras Help Recover Missing Child After 200-Mile Search Across North Carolina

Our Take

This one comes straight from Flock Safety's corporate channel, not an independent journalist, which matters. Companies that sell surveillance infrastructure to thousands of police departments have every incentive to produce feel-good rescue stories, and none to mention the false positives, the data breaches, or the departments quietly sharing plate data with ICE and out-of-state agencies. A dramatic 200-mile recovery is real and worth celebrating if true, but it's also exactly the kind of anecdote that gets rolled into every city council pitch to expand camera coverage with zero public debate.

The problem isn't that ALPRs never help find a missing kid — it's that one success story gets used to wave away years of scope creep, warrantless tracking of ordinary drivers, and networks that log everyone's movements whether they're suspected of anything or not. North Carolina residents deserve to know how many cameras are already watching their commutes, who has access to that data, and how long it's retained — details a company promo video is never going to volunteer.

Check our map to see what's already watching your street, and head to take-action if you want to push your local council for actual transparency instead of another highlight reel.