Debate grows over Flock cameras as one NC county bans them and another town defends use

Our Take

Credit to WCNC for putting two neighboring NC communities side by side and letting the contrast speak for itself. Davidson County deciding to remove its Flock Safety cameras is notable because it's rare — most places that install this tech never revisit the decision once the contract is signed and the "crime-fighting tool" narrative takes hold. Mount Holly, meanwhile, is doing what nearly every city defending Flock does: pointing to cleared cases and treating that as proof the dragnet is worth it, without much public accounting of how many plates get scanned, stored, and shared to get there.

That's the core problem with ALPR rollouts nationwide — they're sold case-by-case as crime solvers, but the infrastructure is built county-by-county, town-by-town, with almost no coordinated public debate about data retention, who gets access, or how far a single network of cameras actually reaches once agencies start sharing feeds. One county bans it, the next town over defends it, and the plate-by-plate tracking of everyday drivers keeps expanding in the gaps between those decisions.

If you live in or near either of these NC communities, or anywhere Flock is quietly going up, check our camera map to see what's already watching your routes, and use our take-action resources if you want to push your local council toward the kind of scrutiny Davidson County just gave this technology.