Sanford Police have installed Automatic License Plate Readers (Flock Cameras) throughout the city, bringing the national privacy debate to our local roads
By Gordon Anderson
Wherever you go, there you are.
And if you’ve been driving around on a public roadway in much of America in recent years, it’s become more and more likely you’ve passed by a camera reading your license plate information and potentially sending it to a law enforcement database. Across the U.S., “automatic license plate readers” (ALPRs) have become increasingly common in the past decade — cameras that are capable of not just photographing vehicles moving along roadways, but also of recording their license plates and making that information accessible to law enforcement.
The cameras don’t just photograph vehicles police are looking for. ALPR cameras capture license plates of any passing vehicles and transmit the information electronically.
One particular company, Flock Safety, has become a major player in ALPRs — so much so that “Flock cameras” has become almost synonymous with the technology (that’s not quite the case, as there are several other companies with similar technology, including Vigilant Solutions, PlateSmart, Genetec, and more). Founded in 2017, Flock now has a nationwide footprint which includes at least 100,000 cameras used by thousands of law enforcement agencies, as well as businesses and private communities.
Sanford is one of those communities.
The Sanford Police Department entered into a $53,900 agreement for Flock license plate reader hardware and software in 2025, according to documents obtained by The Rant through a public records request. An invoice provided by the city identifies six standard Falcon readers and two Falcon Flex units purchased as part of the first year of a two-year agreement.
Where those cameras are located, however, the city won’t say.
The Rant requested the locations of Sanford’s fixed ALPR cameras, along with installation dates and records related to their deployment. The city ultimately confirmed the Sanford Police Department maintains a deployment plan, but declined to provide it or information showing camera locations, citing a provision of North Carolina public records law exempting certain security information from disclosure.
Sanford’s adoption of ALPR technology comes during a time of increasing scrutiny over its use across the country. While advocates say they’re useful for a variety of law enforcement purposes — finding missing persons, recovering stolen vehicles and developing leads in criminal investigations — critics have raised concerns about the routine collection of location information from people suspected of no crime, how widely that information can be shared, and the potential for abuse by individual officers.
ALPR cameras capture license plates of any passing vehicles and transmit the information electronically.
The plate information can then be automatically compared with law enforcement databases and “hot lists,” and then potentially alert officers when a vehicle of interest passes a camera (those lists can include vehicles associated with warrants, stolen vehicles or tags, missing persons, domestic violence protective orders, sex offenders, gang activity or suspected terrorism, supervised prisoner releases and Amber Alerts or missing children, and when the system identifies a possible match, it can send an alert to officers).
Previously collected information can also be searched later as part of future investigations.
Raleigh, for example, says Flock helped its police department recover 154 stolen vehicles, clear 244 criminal cases and locate seven missing people between January 2025 and July 15 of this year.
But the concerns from detractors have intensified following reports of law enforcement officers using ALPR databases for personal purposes, including to track romantic partners and acquaintances. A Washington Post investigation found dozens of cases in which officers allegedly misused ALPR systems, including 46 involving Flock; many involved officers searching for spouses, girlfriends, former partners or other women. The scrutiny has crossed traditional political lines, with civil liberties groups as well as Republican members of Congress calling for new restrictions on the technology. Some law enforcement agencies have suspended or ended their use of Flock amid privacy concerns and public opposition. Flock itself has responded by announcing additional safeguards governing searches and data retention.
Sanford-based defense attorney Chas Post called the use of ALPR technology “a perpetual violation of citizens’ constitutional rights against unwarranted searches.”
“The Supreme Court has previously ruled that people cannot be GPS tracked without a warrant. This goes even further in that these cameras use technology to record the type of vehicle,” he said. “The argument that a law enforcement officer could see the same thing as a Flock camera and therefore Flock cameras are not an issue isn’t genuine, because Flock cameras are as if there are hundreds of officers standing on every street corner in America watching our every move. This is Big Brother in America.”
The Sanford Police Department didn’t respond to multiple requests for an interview about the department’s use of Flock technology, and Sanford Mayor Rebecca Wyhof Salmon declined comment on this story. But The Rant’s public records request did produce the department’s policy on the use of ALPR cameras, which took effect June 26.
The policy describes the technology as an investigative tool rather than a traffic enforcement system and establishes rules governing when officers can act on information generated by the cameras – for example, an alert alone may not be used by Sanford officers as “reasonable suspicion” or “probable cause” for a stop, enforcement actions can’t be based solely on an ALPR alert, and ALPR data is not to be used for traffic enforcement.
Additionally, the policy states that all data is encrypted while in the camera, in transit, and in the cloud. Searches of the system are logged by date, time, user, and purpose of the query. In order for information gleaned from the system to be preserved for more than 90 days, investigators are required to obtain a preservation request or a search warrant. Officers are required to undergo “policy and system overview training” before they’re allowed to access the system.
It’s unclear exactly when SPD began using ALPR technology. The department’s policy governing their use is dated June 26, 2026.
Sanford PD’s cameras don’t retain information indefinitely. Under the department’s policy, Flock stores ALPR data for 30 days before purging it. During that period, officers can search historical data as part of an investigation into any type of crime, although the policy requires an officer conducting a search to enter a corresponding case number, and the searches are subject to audit.
And despite the city’s refusal to disclose the location of its eight cameras, the public has done some work of its own on documenting them. Deflocktheusa.com is a free website which lists more than 143,000 ALPR camera locations across the United States. It shows at least 12 ALPR cameras in Lee County, although at least one camera on the site no longer appears to be present.
There’s another wrinkle, though. Not all of those are Sanford’s, and not all cameras in use across the country are operated by law enforcement agencies. At least two of the cameras are listed on the site as being operated by Lowe’s Home Improvement, one of many companies known to use the technology. Additionally, homeowners associations have been known to use ALPR cameras, although The Rant is unaware of any in Lee County that do so. The Lee County Sheriff’s Office does not operate any ALPR cameras.
That being said, Sanford police do have access to even some cameras they doesn’t operate. The department’s policy states that Sanford police have access through Flock to ALPR cameras and security cameras “owned and maintained by private entities.” That potentially expands the pool of cameras available to investigators beyond the eight units purchased by the city. The records provided to The Rant don’t indicate how many privately owned cameras Sanford police can access, which private entities operate them or how frequently officers use them.
What also isn’t clear from the records provided by the city is how extensively Sanford police actually use that access, or how much the department uses its ALPR system at all.
The records describe in considerable detail what the technology is capable of doing and what officers are permitted to do with it, but provide almost no information about how it’s actually been used in Sanford. They don’t show how many license plates the city’s cameras have photographed, how frequently the cameras generate alerts, how often officers search historical data, or how many investigations have used information obtained through the systems.
And they don’t show whether the Sanford Police Department’s cameras have produced results like those Raleigh attributes to its own Flock system: arrests, the recovery of stolen vehicles or the location of missing people.
The extent of Sanford’s connections to the larger Flock network is also unclear. The records don’t establish how many officers have access to the system, which other law enforcement agencies can search information collected by Sanford’s cameras or precisely which of the network-sharing capabilities described in Flock’s contractual materials Sanford has enabled.
A search of Sanford City Council minutes from 2025 to the present day includes no references to Flock or other ALPR cameras. But SPD’s use of Flock cameras didn’t require a vote by the Sanford City Council. North Carolina law allows state and local law enforcement agencies to operate ALPR systems, subject to restrictions on how they’re used.
Among other requirements, agencies using ALPR technology must adopt a written policy governing the system before it becomes operational. That policy — as Sanford’s does — is required to address issues including data retention, sharing information with other law enforcement agencies, officer training, supervisory oversight, internal security, auditing and access to ALPR systems operated by other entities. State law also limits information collected by the systems to law enforcement purposes and prohibits use of the system for traffic enforcement.
In the Sanford Police Department’s case, Assistant Chief Vinnie Frazer signed an order form constituting an agreement between SPD and Flock on Sept. 24, 2025.
So while the records provided to The Rant by the Sanford Police Department establish what the city got for its $53,900, what the technology can do, and the rules its officers have to follow, what they don’t show is how the system has operated in practice: How extensively it’s used, what results it has produced or how broadly the information it collects is shared.
Those are questions The Rant hoped to ask the Sanford Police Department. But multiple requests for an interview weren’t answered.
What we do know is this: Sanford has eight cameras that collect license plate information from vehicles traveling in the area, and Sanford police can search that information for up to a month after it’s collected. How often they access that information, what they find when they do, and the role those searches have played in local investigations remain unknown.
FLOCK CAMERAS IN SANFORD
Deflocktheusa.com shows 12 locations in Lee County with ALPR cameras.
- U.S. 1 at the Lee/Moore county line. This camera is logged as a Flock Safety camera, facing northeast, and was reported to the website in February 2026.
- Two cameras on U.S. 1 just north of Hawkins Avenue, near Pfizer’s facility. These cameras are logged as Flock Safety cameras standing on either side of the highway. One faces south and one faces north. They were reported to the website in June 2026.
- U.S. 1 and Colon Road. This camera is logged as a Flock Safety camera. The website doesn’t indicate when the camera was reported or which direction it faces.
- U.S. 1 between Wicker Street and the Carbonton Road overpass. This camera is logged as an unknown brand, pole mounted, and facing south. It was reported to the website in July 2026.
- Tramway Road just east of the intersection with St. Andrews Church Road. This camera faces south and is logged as a Flock Safety camera. It was reported to the website in March 2026.
- Two cameras are listed on North Horner Boulevard just southeast of the intersection with U.S. 1, one on each side of the road. They’re logged as Flock Safety cameras. The one next to the southbound lane was reported in June 2026, but no longer appears to be standing. The one next to the northbound lane of traffic is pole mounted, faces west, and was reported to the site in August 2026.
- Two cameras are listed as operated by Lowe’s Home Improvement and placed at each of the entrances to the store’s parking lot on South Horner Boulevard. They’re logged as Flock Safety cameras and were reported to the site in February and April 2026.
- Two other Flock Safety cameras are logged in the same immediate area, one just southeast of the Horner Boulevard entrance to Lowe’s which faces west (reported May 2026) and one near the intersection of Horner Boulevard and Seawell Street facing east (reported June 2026).
Great article, thank you!
Maybe it will catch all these people who are speeding & on their cellphones driving