NC town ends Flock Safety cameras contract, siding with privacy rights
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Pittsboro canceled its Flock Safety contract and set a July 1 removal deadline.
- Residents raised privacy and surveillance concerns, prompting the board to end the system.
- Pittsboro has nine Flock cameras and reported nearly 75,000 vehicle detections in 30 days.
The town of Pittsboro has canceled its contract for a controversial system of license-plate readers, siding with privacy rights in a months-long debate over surveillance concerns.
Pittsboro officials in 2024 installed a series of surveillance cameras over local roads, billed by Flock Safety as a method to root out and deter crime. But the town board voted 4-1 to end the contract Monday night, setting a July 1 deadline for the Atlanta-based company to remove the cameras after an outpouring of concerns from local residents.
“The overwhelming sentiment from our residents is that the potential of abuse, loss of privacy and lack of meaningful guardrails outweigh the benefits that these cameras provide,” Commissioner Candace Hunziker said at the meeting.
The decision comes just weeks after the Chatham County Board of Commissioners voted to remove its Flock cameras, leaving Pittsboro — which had its own contract with the company — as the last town in the county with an active Flock system.
Now, Pittsboro joins a growing list of municipalities across the country that are ending their contracts with Flock Safety due to mounting fears of data surveillance.
Database concerns
Flock Safety cameras — which watch over more than 5,000 municipalities across the country — scan vehicles’ license plates and funnel the data into a searchable database, which police and Flock Safety say supports investigations, help make criminal arrests and find missing people.
But Flock Safety’s history of sharing data with the federal government without local consent has led many local officials to sever their ties with the company.
Flock Safety has said some local governments unknowingly opted into the federal sharing model. Federal agencies are now no longer a part of statewide lookup services as of 2026, the company wrote earlier this year, and sharing with federal agencies is now disabled by default for all local police departments.
Flock Safety didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story Tuesday.
Pittsboro Mayor Kyle Shipp said concerns about the details of the town’s contract with Flock Safety are “legitimate.” But he urged the board to continue the surveillance system through the end of the contract in January 2027 under the conditions of adding no additional cameras to the town and continuing the town’s policies of a 30-day data retention limit and monthly audit of searches conducted on the database.
“There’s an opportunity to continue using this tool while we put the onus on Flock for the contract changes,” he said.
According to the Pittsboro Police Department’s transparency portal, the city has nine Flock Safety cameras, with nearly 75,000 vehicles detected over the past 30 days and 61 searches conducted.
Facial recognition, people, gender and race are not tracked, according to the portal, and searches related to immigration enforcement, traffic enforcement or personal use are prohibited, with all data owned by Pittsboro police.
Surveillance: ‘Where does it end?’
At Monday’s meeting Mayor Pro Tem Jay Farrell read a statement from a local business owner who said a truck had been stolen from his business last week and credited the Flock Safety license plate readers for recovering the vehicle within a matter of days.
In the current digital age, Farrell argued, surveillance is likely unavoidable, from surveillance in cameras in stores to a cellphone’s tracking features.
“We heard the word monitor numerous times from every person who spoke,” Farrell said. “My question is what about your cell phones, what about computers, what about the toll roads, cameras at Food Lion, Lowes, the convenient store — where does it end?”
Commissioners were in agreement about the need for investment in public safety, but several said the message from constituents was clear — residents want the cameras gone.
“We’re in a time of patriotic vigilance when it comes to constitutional violations,” Commissioner John Foley said. “I can’t control our cell phones. I cannot control what’s monitored on my computer, but I can control the Flock cameras in my town. And that is something that is quite compelling for me.”
This story was originally published May 13, 2026 at 9:00 AM with the headline "NC town ends Flock Safety cameras contract, siding with privacy rights."
