Franklin County Sheriff’s Office unplugs ALPR cameras after finding they were still operating

Our Take

Credit to WCTV Eyewitness News for catching this one: a sheriff's office finding out its own license plate readers were still humming along after someone presumably flipped the "off" switch. That's not a minor clerical error — it's a glimpse into how little oversight actually governs these networks once they're installed. If a sheriff's office can lose track of whether its own cameras are live, what confidence should the public have in claims about retention windows, data sharing, or who's pulling searches on any given day?

This is the recurring problem with ALPR deployments nationwide. The technology gets sold on promises of tight control and narrow use cases, then it quietly operates in the background with nobody double-checking the switches. "Oops, it was still on" isn't an acceptable answer when the system in question is vacuuming up the location data of every driver who passes by, logged and queryable, regardless of suspicion.

Incidents like this are exactly why independent tracking matters. Agencies will say cameras are down, decommissioned, or restricted — but without outside verification, those are just words. Check our camera map to see what's logged running in your area, and visit our take-action page if you want to push your local officials for real accountability instead of assurances.