What Dare County Officials Are Actually Telling Us

Dare County has 48 Flock cameras spread across the Sheriff's Office and five municipal police departments, a number that has grown steadily since 2023. County officials describe the system as a narrow investigative tool, with Chief Deputy Jeff Deringer stating plainly: "These cameras are solely focused on photographing the license plates on vehicles that operate on public roadways," and asserting that using them to racially profile is "not only illegal, but it is impossible". Kill Devil Hills Lieutenant Julie Haner offered a similar assurance, saying the technology "aids in the collection of objective evidence without compromising individual privacy" and does not include facial recognition or detect race, gender, or religion. But these assurances leave the core privacy question unanswered. Officials confirmed that each department shares data with other agencies to varying degrees. The Sheriff's Office shares with state and federal agencies "on a case-by-case basis with authorization," Duck's department allows searches by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and other federal entities, and Nags Head grants access to a Homeland Security Investigations officer assigned to narcotics enforcement . ACLU policy analyst Jay Stanley, quoted in the same report, warned that this kind of access is nearly impossible to fully control: "all it takes is one police officer somewhere in Texas, Alaska, Hawaii, New Jersey, or anywhere else whose brother-in-law works for ICE. And that person could do searches for them and share it". Stanley also pointed to a real case in Texas where a sheriff's department used license plate data to track a woman across state lines after she sought abortion care. That is exactly the kind of cross-jurisdictional tracking Dare County residents deserve clear answers about, not just local audit assurances.