Entire neighborhoods are now effectively trapped behind a net of license-plate surveillance. When the roads in and out are covered, Pittsboro can track when you leave, where you go, and when you come home.
When the main ways in and out are covered, you don’t have “a few cameras.” You have a checkpoint system that turns daily life into a searchable record.
Shut it down immediately and stop collecting more data.
ALPRs invade your privacy and violate your civil liberties. Here's how:
There's no independent research proving that ALPRs can reduce crime. Headlines and supporting studies claiming otherwise are often produced by the companies selling ALPRs and the police agencies buying them.
For example, Flock Safety claims that 10% of Reported Crime in the U.S. Is Solved Using Flock Technology. The study that Flock cites was conducted by two Flock employees and “given legitimacy with the 'oversight' of two academic researchers whose names are also on the paper” according to a report by 404 Media. Flock Safety is using the veneer of an academic study as part of its sales pitch.
What research does exist regarding the ability of ALPRs to reduce crime is inconclusive at best:
Our findings indicate that, when small numbers of LPR patrols are used in crime hot spots in the way we have tested them here, they do not seem to generate either a general or offense-specific deterrent effect.
-Journal of Experimental Criminology
There is not even a moderate degree of correlation between ALPRs and stolen vehicle recoveries, let alone any apparent casualty
Companies that make ALPRs have a history of poor security practices, which can lead to data breaches and unauthorized access to sensitive information. For example:
See Dragnet (Policing) on Wikipedia.
A study of ALPRs in Piedmont, CA, found that less than 0.3% of ALPR hits might translate into a useful investigative lead. Most license plates recorded were not on a hot list, yet police still logged information on people's movements throughout the day.
Flock Safety provides Transparency Portals to their police customers, which allow the public to see the data collected by ALPRs. From these portals, we can see that the vast majority of license plates scanned are not on a hot list (vehicles suspected of being involved in crimes). For example:
There are many documented cases where police have knowingly used ALPRs to commit crimes and put people in danger. These examples illustrate that it can be difficult to put meaningful restrictions in place that prevent ALPRs from being used for nefarious purposes. It's often only after harm is done that an officer is caught and punished, if at all.
The negligent use of ALPRs has led to dangerous police encounters, including pulling guns on innocent drivers. Here are just a few examples:
ALPRs are more likely to surveil communities with a higher density of Black and brown people, reinforcing systemic racism in policing.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reviewed the use of ALPRs by the Oakland Police Department and found that ALPR cameras were more likely to scan license plates in communities with a higher density of Black and brown people than in communities with a higher density of white people.
A report by The Associated Press shows that after 9/11, the NYPD used ALPRs to monitor Muslims visiting mosques.
A study of Flock Safety’s impact in Oak Park, IL found:
In the first 10 months of their use, 84% of the drivers stopped by Oak Park police because of Flock were Black.
Police agencies frequently share ALPR data with ICE, putting undocumented people at risk, even in states where this is legally prohibited:
Source: DeFlock — What is an ALPR?
Interactive map of known/identified camera locations.
The Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect people from unreasonable searches. A town-wide system that logs the public’s movements at scale is exactly that: a search.
Mass surveillance databases do not stay “local.” Once the data exists, it spreads—through sharing networks, inter-agency cooperation, and informal requests.
Public Comment is on the agenda. If you want to speak, do this:
Suggested ask:
Shut it down
Delete the data
Public vote
Official agenda (includes Public Comment instructions): Feb 9, 2026 BOC Agenda
Don’t just show up—email and call. Tell them to shut the system down, delete the data, and require a public vote before any restart.
Pro tip: keep it short and direct. “Shut it down. Delete the data. Public vote.”
If you want to get involved, ask additional questions, report information, or coordinate help, email:
Please include your name and the best way to reach you back.
A cloud-connected license-plate surveillance system that turns vehicles into searchable records and roads into sensors.
When the main entrances and exits are covered, everyone’s movement becomes a log: leaving, returning, visitors, deliveries—day after day.
Because a surveillance database is valuable beyond local policing. Once created, it becomes an enforcement tool that other agencies want access to.
Safety measures that don’t require tracking everyone: targeted investigations, improved lighting/design in problem areas, and narrowly scoped cameras limited to specific public assets.
Additional FAQs (from DeFlock):
No. Police have always had methods to obtain location information for suspects of crimes. These methods used to require establishing probable cause and obtaining a search warrant, which provides oversight and accountability as required by the 4th Amendment. ALPRs, on the other hand, collect location data on all of us, and they are searched without any warrants or oversight.
Just because you're not doing anything wrong today doesn't mean you won't be watched tomorrow. License plate cameras like Flock don't know your intentions—only your movements. A trip to a protest, a friend's house in a “high-crime” area, or even a misread plate can flag you as “suspicious.”
As history has shown, when governments or third parties gain unchecked surveillance powers, they're eventually used against people who weren't doing anything wrong—until someone decided they were. For example, until early in 2025, ALPRs weren't used for tracking immigrants, legal or otherwise, but now they are, despite policies prohibiting it.
2. Mistakes happen, and you're the one who pays for them.Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) are not always accurate. People have been pulled over at gunpoint, arrested, or detained because a camera misread a plate or flagged the wrong car.
If you “have nothing to hide,” you also have nothing to correct the record with when a machine error points the finger at you.
No, ALPRs record all vehicles that pass by, not just those involved in crimes. They capture license plates, unique identifying features, locations, dates, and times of every vehicle, regardless of whether the driver is suspected of wrongdoing. This means that even if you're not doing anything wrong, your movements are still being tracked and stored, often for long periods of time.
Additionally, the data collected by ALPRs can be shared with other law enforcement agencies and third parties, further extending the reach of this surveillance. This raises significant privacy concerns, as most individuals are not aware that their movements are being monitored and recorded.
No, police do not need a warrant to search these cameras. The data collected by ALPRs is owned by the police department, and law enforcement agencies can access it without a warrant. There is often no oversight at all on how these searches are conducted, raising concerns about their constitutionality under the Fourth Amendment.
Some agencies have implemented agency-wide ALPR policies, but these policies are meaningless, as most agencies have opted into an extensive data sharing network that allows other agencies to access their data without the same restrictions, with tens of thousands of national searches occurring on a daily basis.
There is little to no oversight for these systems. While some police departments have implemented policies regarding the use of ALPRs, these policies are often weak and poorly enforced. Many agencies do not have any policies at all, and there is no requirement for transparency or accountability in how these systems are used.
While Flock offers a transparency portal for their law enforcement customers, they allow their customers to cherry-pick what information is included or excluded from the portal. They also lack any meaningful data, often underreporting the number of agencies with access. Many activists believe the hotlist hits section is inflated to make it appear that the cameras are more effective than they actually are.
Absolutely not. Flock's transparency portals are notoriously incomplete and often misleading. They allow law enforcement agencies to cherry-pick what information is included or excluded, leading to significant underreporting of the number of organizations with access to the data.
Take Boulder, Colorado for example. Their transparency portal lists around 90 agencies with access to their ALPR data. However, a public records request revealed that over 6,000 agencies actually had access. This discrepancy highlights the lack of transparency and accountability in Flock's reporting.
Absolutely not. In November 2025, a security researcher found Flock logins for sale on Russian hacking forums, since Flock negligently doesn't require multifactor authentication, an alleged violation of federal law and industry standard security practices.
Flock has also been caught several times lying on the record. For example, their CEO was interviewed by Denver 9News, and he claimed that Flock had no federal contracts. However, a couple weeks later, 9News discovered that Border Patrol actually did have access to search Flock's systems. Flock described the data sharing agreement as "one-to-one", meaning an agency would have to accept the data sharing request from Border Patrol.
Doubtful of this claim, we filed a public records request with the Boulder Police Department in Colorado, and we found that "U.S. Border Patrol" was searching over 6,000 agencies, consistent with the number of agencies on the national network at the time. Either every agency on the national network happily accepted Border Patrol's request to their data, or Flock was lying on the record yet again.
Source: DeFlock — What is an ALPR?
Use these links when you speak or email officials:
ACLU — “Flock Roundup” (privacy & surveillance concerns)Pittsboro has trapped neighborhoods behind a surveillance net that enables real-time monitoring of where we go and when we come home. This is mass, warrantless location tracking — a Fourth Amendment violation — and it creates an ICE pipeline. Shut it down now.