💻 WECT News Now: Concerns about Flock cameras

Our Take

Credit to Connor Smith and the WECT News Now team for doing what far too few local newsrooms bother with: actually investigating the Flock cameras popping up around their community instead of just repeating a press release from the police department or the company itself. When a local anchor desk is asking "what are the concerns here" on air, that's a sign this issue has moved past the message boards and into the mainstream — which is exactly where it needs to be.

These segments matter because Flock's whole business model depends on quiet, uncontested rollout. One city council approves a "pilot program," nobody in the next town over hears a peep about it, and suddenly there's a statewide network of plate readers logging everyone's movements with zero public debate about retention windows, data sharing agreements, or who gets access to the search logs. Local TV asking pointed questions is a crack in that silence, even if a short interview segment can only scratch the surface of how these systems actually work, who's buying them, and what happens to the data once it's collected.

If you're in the Wilmington area or anywhere else in the country wondering whether there's a camera on your route to work, check our camera map to see what's already been documented nearby, and if your town is debating a Flock contract, our take-action page has the tools to make sure that debate actually happens in the open.