Evan Barrone

Our Take

Credit to Evan Barrone and the DeFlockILM channel for doing what too few residents bother to do: showing up to a county commissioners meeting and putting Flock Safety's license plate readers on the public record. Public comment footage like this matters because it's often the only moment where a surveillance program that otherwise runs on autopilot — renewed in budget line items, justified in vague press releases — actually gets questioned out loud, in front of the people who voted to fund it.

New Hanover County is just one node in a national network of ALPR cameras that quietly log every vehicle that passes, regardless of suspicion, and feed that data into systems with murky retention rules and even murkier oversight. When a single commenter has to do the work of demanding transparency, it's a sign the county itself hasn't done enough to explain who can access this data, how long it's kept, and what guardrails exist against abuse or data sharing with outside agencies.

If you live in New Hanover County or anywhere else these cameras are popping up, don't wait for someone else to ask the questions. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your streets, and use our take-action resources to push your own local officials for real answers.