We are calling on Chester County Council and the Chester County Sheriff's Office to remove Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras from our community and end participation in the Flock or any other ALPR surveillance network. We are calling for a countywide ordinance banning ALPRs. 

This isn't about whether a license plate can be seen from a public road. It's about creating a searchable database of where vehicles have been seen, when they were seen, and where they were traveling, including vehicles belonging to thousands of people who are not suspected of committing any crime.

Chester County has built a significant piece of that database, and the county's own records show how far it reaches:

Locked itself into a five-year, $528,500 contract for 40 cameras, after the standard clause letting the county cancel early was struck from the agreement. There's no way out before the term ends.
Added a second camera contract at Exit 65: $83,000 over five years, approved 6-0 by County Council with almost no public discussion, after growing from an original pitch of just $40,000 over two years.
Given 311 outside law enforcement agencies standing access to Chester County's camera data, and only about 1 in 4 of them are even located in South Carolina. Where does the rest of that data go?
Allowed 233 searches of Chester County's camera network in a single 30-day period, with more than 90% of those searches coming from outside the local network, and every single requester's identity blacked out in the county's own records.
Run this system for roughly two years before adopting any written policy at all governing how it could be used.
Given data access to multiple agencies that have documented histories of misusing this exact same platform elsewhere.
This isn't a rumor or a guess. Every one of these facts comes directly from Chester County's own records, obtained through the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act.

And the risks aren't hypothetical. Policies, audits, and retention limits may reduce some risks, but they do not change the fundamental issue: the government should not routinely collect and make searchable the vehicle-location information of ordinary citizens simply because they drove down a public road.

The ground is also shifting under the legal justification for all of this. In June 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Chatrie v. United States made clear that warrantless collection and sharing of location data like this raises real Fourth Amendment concerns, the kind of concerns Chester County has never publicly addressed.

We're not the only ones asking these questions. On August 18, 2026, Oconee County Council voted 4-1 to advance a "Protection from Mass Surveillance" ordinance that would ban county funds and property from supporting Flock-style camera networks, the first such measure introduced by any South Carolina county. Its final vote is scheduled for September 15, 2026. Chester County residents deserve the same conversation, and the same choice.

We support effective law enforcement. We support recovering stolen vehicles, finding dangerous offenders, and protecting our community. But supporting law enforcement does not require supporting every surveillance technology available.

We are asking Chester County officials to:

Stop purchasing or installing any additional Flock or ALPR cameras.
Permanently remove all existing Flock Safety cameras from Chester County, including both the original 40-camera contract and the Exit 65 cameras.
Terminate or decline to renew these contracts and data-sharing arrangements at the earliest legally available opportunity.
Publicly disclose all contracts, costs, policies, audits, and data-sharing agreements as the system is dismantled.
Commit to never procuring another mass-surveillance camera system without a public vote, an independently audited data-sharing agreement, and real limits on who can access our data.

Most people captured by these cameras aren't criminals. They're going to work. Taking their children to school. Going to church. Visiting family. Seeing a doctor. Shopping. Or simply driving home.

Public safety matters. Privacy matters. Civil liberties matter. Chester County can have all three.

Sign this petition and tell Chester County officials: take the cameras down.