Ban Flock AI Mass Surveillance Cameras in North Carolina
The Issue
A petition to the North Carolina General Assembly
A mass surveillance network is expanding across North Carolina with little public debate. More than 3,000 automated license plate reader cameras have been documented across the state on the crowdsourced DeFlock map — including over 700 verified Flock Safety cameras operated by at least 80 law enforcement agencies — and a provision in the newly passed state budget has now made the SBI's statewide highway camera program permanent, with the agency's stated priority of installing readers on every major highway entering and leaving North Carolina. These systems do far more than read plates: they photograph every passing vehicle, log its make, model, color, and distinguishing features, and feed that data into a nationwide database searchable by thousands of agencies — no warrant required.
The dangers are documented, not hypothetical. Across the country, Flock data has been accessed by federal agencies without local authorization and used for purposes communities explicitly prohibited. North Carolina communities have already responded: Hillsborough, Pittsboro, Chatham County, and Macon County have each terminated their Flock contracts and ordered the cameras removed, citing data-sharing risks, potential for abuse, and the absence of meaningful guardrails. But residents should not have to fight this battle town by town while the state builds a permanent dragnet over their heads.
We therefore call on the North Carolina General Assembly to prohibit Flock Safety and similar AI-powered mass surveillance systems on public roads and state infrastructure, and to bar North Carolina agencies from accessing such data absent a warrant and strict statutory safeguards. North Carolinians have the right to travel through their own state without being tracked and cataloged in a national database. True public safety does not require surrendering the privacy of every driver in North Carolina.
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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The Issue
A petition to the North Carolina General Assembly
A mass surveillance network is expanding across North Carolina with little public debate. More than 3,000 automated license plate reader cameras have been documented across the state on the crowdsourced DeFlock map — including over 700 verified Flock Safety cameras operated by at least 80 law enforcement agencies — and a provision in the newly passed state budget has now made the SBI's statewide highway camera program permanent, with the agency's stated priority of installing readers on every major highway entering and leaving North Carolina. These systems do far more than read plates: they photograph every passing vehicle, log its make, model, color, and distinguishing features, and feed that data into a nationwide database searchable by thousands of agencies — no warrant required.
The dangers are documented, not hypothetical. Across the country, Flock data has been accessed by federal agencies without local authorization and used for purposes communities explicitly prohibited. North Carolina communities have already responded: Hillsborough, Pittsboro, Chatham County, and Macon County have each terminated their Flock contracts and ordered the cameras removed, citing data-sharing risks, potential for abuse, and the absence of meaningful guardrails. But residents should not have to fight this battle town by town while the state builds a permanent dragnet over their heads.
We therefore call on the North Carolina General Assembly to prohibit Flock Safety and similar AI-powered mass surveillance systems on public roads and state infrastructure, and to bar North Carolina agencies from accessing such data absent a warrant and strict statutory safeguards. North Carolinians have the right to travel through their own state without being tracked and cataloged in a national database. True public safety does not require surrendering the privacy of every driver in North Carolina.
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