License Plate Recognition In Cobb County

Our Take

Credit where it's due: Cobb County Police Department made this video themselves, and that's exactly the problem. This isn't independent reporting — it's a department marketing its own surveillance program, with Deputy Chief VanHoozer picking the highlight reel of "biggest apprehensions" while leaving out the parts taxpayers actually need to know. How many cameras are deployed? Who else can query that data — ICE, other agencies, private companies? How long is it retained, and who audits misuse? None of that makes for a feel-good clip, so none of it gets asked.

This is the standard playbook for Flock Safety rollouts nationwide: local PD produces a friendly explainer, points to a handful of solved crimes, and calls it accountability. Meanwhile every plate that drives past those cameras — belonging to people who've done nothing wrong — gets logged, timestamped, and stored in a database that can be searched, shared, or subpoenaed long after the fact. Success stories don't tell you what happens to the other 99.9% of scans.

If Cobb County wants to talk transparency, the real test isn't a YouTube video — it's a public accounting of every agency with access to that data and a hard retention limit enforced by policy, not press release. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your commute, and hit take action if you want to push back before this becomes permanent infrastructure in your town too.