Ban Flock AI Mass Surveillance Cameras in North Carolina
The Issue
Take the Flock cameras down — don't regulate mass surveillance, end it.
To the North Carolina General Assembly and our local governments:
We, the undersigned North Carolinians, are calling for an end to automated license plate reader (ALPR) surveillance in our state. We are not asking for shorter retention, more audits, or a warrant requirement. We are asking for the cameras to come down.
Safeguards always fail. More than a year of reporting on Flock Safety has shown, over and over, that whatever rules get written on paper, the system gets used in ways its buyers swore it wouldn't — shared with agencies that were never supposed to have it, including federal immigration enforcement; searched without documentation; even left exposed online. Legal and technical safeguards have proven insufficient every single time. A tool this powerful, in this many hands, cannot be made safe by a policy any official can quietly change.
They don't deliver the safety their claims promise. While plate readers have helped recover stolen cars and, in isolated cases, aided in investigations, they do not meaningfully reduce crime or violence. Atlanta grew its camera network eightfold, to more than 28,000 cameras, while clearance rates for homicide, robbery, and rape stayed flat or fell. Independent audits elsewhere found no demonstrated link to crime reduction. Blanket surveillance of everyone is not a serious answer to violence — it's an expensive substitute for one.
Every dollar spent renting cameras from a private company is money going to line a multi-billion dollar company's pockets, not spent on what actually reduces crime and violence: housing, mental-health and crisis response, youth programs, and the root causes of harm.
We call on our elected officials to:
- Cancel and decline to renew every ALPR/Flock contract in North Carolina.
- Remove the cameras already installed and delete the data collected.
- Reject SBI/NCDOT authority to place readers on our public roads.
- Reinvest those public funds in programs proven to address the root causes of crime and violence.
Surveillance this extensive should never have been installed without our consent. Take it down.
Sign this petition. Find the cameras near you at deflock.me and learn more at deflocknc.org
Sign the national petition as well: https://www.change.org/p/end-alpr-mass-surveillance
3
The Issue
Take the Flock cameras down — don't regulate mass surveillance, end it.
To the North Carolina General Assembly and our local governments:
We, the undersigned North Carolinians, are calling for an end to automated license plate reader (ALPR) surveillance in our state. We are not asking for shorter retention, more audits, or a warrant requirement. We are asking for the cameras to come down.
Safeguards always fail. More than a year of reporting on Flock Safety has shown, over and over, that whatever rules get written on paper, the system gets used in ways its buyers swore it wouldn't — shared with agencies that were never supposed to have it, including federal immigration enforcement; searched without documentation; even left exposed online. Legal and technical safeguards have proven insufficient every single time. A tool this powerful, in this many hands, cannot be made safe by a policy any official can quietly change.
They don't deliver the safety their claims promise. While plate readers have helped recover stolen cars and, in isolated cases, aided in investigations, they do not meaningfully reduce crime or violence. Atlanta grew its camera network eightfold, to more than 28,000 cameras, while clearance rates for homicide, robbery, and rape stayed flat or fell. Independent audits elsewhere found no demonstrated link to crime reduction. Blanket surveillance of everyone is not a serious answer to violence — it's an expensive substitute for one.
Every dollar spent renting cameras from a private company is money going to line a multi-billion dollar company's pockets, not spent on what actually reduces crime and violence: housing, mental-health and crisis response, youth programs, and the root causes of harm.
We call on our elected officials to:
- Cancel and decline to renew every ALPR/Flock contract in North Carolina.
- Remove the cameras already installed and delete the data collected.
- Reject SBI/NCDOT authority to place readers on our public roads.
- Reinvest those public funds in programs proven to address the root causes of crime and violence.
Surveillance this extensive should never have been installed without our consent. Take it down.
Sign this petition. Find the cameras near you at deflock.me and learn more at deflocknc.org
Sign the national petition as well: https://www.change.org/p/end-alpr-mass-surveillance
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Petition created on July 19, 2026