Flock Cameras in Winston-Salem: What the License Plate Readers See

There is a good chance you drove past one today.

It sits about 13 feet up on a slim metal pole, usually near an intersection. Black box roughly the size of a shoebox. Small solar panel on top. No markings that explain what it is.

It photographs your license plate. So does the next one.

Winston-Salem approved 25 of them in January 2023.¹ They are made by a company called Flock Safety, and here is the part most residents don't know: those 25 cameras are not a Winston-Salem system. Forbes reported in 2025 that Flock had more than 80,000 cameras across American cities,² and the company's own materials describe them as networked, searchable across jurisdictions.

Which means a question worth asking is not just what do Winston-Salem's cameras see. It's who can look.

First, what the city says they do

The Winston-Salem Police Department published an FAQ on the city website answering exactly this.³ It is worth reading in full, but the short version:

They do: photograph passing plates, convert them to text, and compare them against databases of vehicles tied to investigations.

They don't: record video, use facial recognition, identify drivers or passengers, or issue traffic tickets. The FAQ states plainly that the cameras cannot follow a vehicle once it leaves the frame.³

The department lists six approved reasons to pull images: stolen or suspect vehicles, suspects with warrants, witnesses or victims of violent crime, Amber and Silver Alerts, special events, and critical infrastructure.³

Every search is logged, including user name, date, time, and stated reason. WSPD says it audits those logs twice a year and keeps the records at least three years.³

On how long your plate sticks around: state law, N.C.G.S. 20-183.32, caps it at 90 days unless a warrant or preservation request extends it.⁴ Flock CEO Garrett Langley said in an ACLU report cited by Triad City Beat that the company deletes at 30 days.¹ The city describes images as tagged with an automatic expiration marker in Amazon's cloud.³

That is a fairly specific set of promises. Hold onto it.

How they got here, and what they cost

The vote was unanimous.

On Jan. 3, 2023, Winston-Salem City Council approved 25 readers across all eight wards, roughly three per ward. Triad City Beat noted a wrinkle: council documents said 24, and Assistant City Manager Patrice Toney confirmed by email it would actually be 25.¹

The first year was free. Flock and Axon, the company that already supplied WSPD's body cameras, donated the pilot. WFMY News 2 and FOX8 put the value above $71,000.^{5 6} After that, Triad City Beat reported the price at $2,500 per camera per year.¹

The cameras went up inside WSPD's existing ShotSpotter coverage area and feed into the department's Real Time Crime Center through a platform called Fusus. The Winston-Salem Journal reported the city spent about $550,000 in 2022 building that center at police headquarters.⁷

The pitch was staffing. Toney told the Winston-Salem Journal in November 2022 the department was short nearly 100 sworn officers.⁸ Assistant Police Chief William Penn Jr. told WFDD the appeal was automation. An alert fires when a flagged plate passes, without an officer needing to be there or remember the vehicle.⁹

Council wasn't entirely without questions. East Ward member Annette Scippio told Triad City Beat she was glad the pilot was free but had concerns about expanding surveillance. Residents interviewed by the same outlet split about how you'd expect. One asked how else the data might be used later. Another said he'd support anything that closed cases.¹⁰

And you are not only on WSPD's cameras. Per a WSPD presentation on the city website, the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office, Winston-Salem State University Police, and Wake Forest University Police are all on the same network.¹¹

Then a deputy in Texas typed a reason into the search box

On May 9, 2025, a deputy with the Johnson County Sheriff's Office in Texas ran a Flock search. Officers are required to enter a reason. He entered: "had an abortion, search for female."¹²

404 Media obtained the logs. The Electronic Frontier Foundation reported the search swept 83,000 cameras across 6,809 separate networks, including cameras in Illinois and Washington, states where abortion is legal.¹³

No warrant was required.

Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias referred the matter to his state's attorney general. His office told ABC7 Chicago that Flock then cut off 62 out-of-state agencies and started flagging searches containing the words "abortion" and "immigration."¹⁴

That is one search, from one deputy, in one Texas county, reaching into six thousand camera networks he had no local connection to.

Three more things that have happened on this network

Federal agencies got in without a contract. 404 Media reported that ICE, which has no agreement with Flock, asked local departments to run more than 4,000 searches on its behalf.¹⁵ Flock's website states it has no ICE contract and that federal agencies were removed from national lookup in August 2025.¹⁶ In Bend, Oregon, The Bend Source reported federal immigration officials queried the local database 279 times in three weeks, because national lookup was switched on by default.¹⁷

Officers have used it on people they know. The Institute for Justice, a legal nonprofit that sues over surveillance, counted 24 documented misuse cases as of mid-July 2026, several involving officers tracking former partners.¹⁸ In North Carolina: WLOS reported that Charlotte-Mecklenburg officer Seth Elliot was charged July 29, 2026, with illegally accessing a government computer after a State Bureau of Investigation inquiry into an unauthorized plate query.¹⁹

The search volume is larger than you'd guess. DeFlock ILM, a New Hanover County advocacy group, obtained a Flock audit by records request for N.C. A&T's 16-camera campus system in Greensboro. Per that audit, 3,487 agencies ran 1.4 million searches against those 16 cameras in three months, most from outside North Carolina.²⁰

Sixteen cameras. Three months. Twenty miles from here.

The courts are still deciding

Two Norfolk, Virginia residents sued their city in October 2024 over its 172 Flock cameras, arguing warrantless location tracking violates the Fourth Amendment. The Institute for Justice represented them.¹⁸

They lost, for now. Courthouse News Service reported that on Jan. 27, 2026, U.S. District Judge Mark Davis ruled for the city in a 51-page opinion, finding the plaintiffs hadn't shown the system could track the whole of a person's movements.²¹

But WHRO reported Davis added a caveat: the technology could cross that line as it grows. In Norfolk, he wrote, the answer was "not today."²²

The plaintiffs are appealing to the Fourth Circuit, the court that covers North Carolina.

Meanwhile, on June 29, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Chatrie v. United States 6-3, holding that pulling someone's stored cellphone location history counts as a Fourth Amendment search.²³ Institute for Justice attorney Michael Soyfer told Truthout the ruling will shape license plate reader cases. Truthout reported more than 113,000 readers now operate nationwide.²⁴

North Carolina pushed back once already

Flock spent years fighting the North Carolina Alarm Systems Licensing Board, which opened an investigation in January 2022. North Carolina is the only state requiring that license, a Flock spokesperson told the News & Observer. A Wake County judge ordered installations halted in October 2023 before the dispute resolved.²⁵

The company won. Flock said in a release cited by the N&O that roughly 100 North Carolina agencies use its cameras, plus UNC campuses in Chapel Hill and Charlotte, with more than 400 customers statewide.²⁵

Some residents have taken a more direct approach. WLOS reported a damaged camera in Rutherfordton drew more than 20,000 comments on a police social media post this July.²⁶ FOX8 reported cameras cut down at a Wake Forest park, and a Wadesboro police chief issuing a public warning after a "DeFlock Wadesboro" page surfaced.²⁷

That same chief, Michael Childers, told FOX8 his 21 cameras helped solve four homicides in a year and locate more than a dozen stolen vehicles and missing people.²⁷

Both of those things are true at once. That is most of why this is hard.

What Winston-Salem hasn't answered

Here is where the public record runs out.

Where are they? The city's FAQ asks and answers this question, and the answer is that units are placed at fixed locations throughout the city on public roadways.³ No list. No map.

How many are there now? The number 25 is from the 2023 pilot. Nothing more recent has been published.

Was the pilot renewed? Toney told Triad City Beat in 2023 that the police department would come back with a funding request if the cameras proved effective.¹ No public record of that decision, or of the pilot's results, could be located.

What did the audits find? WSPD committed to auditing twice a year.³ Those findings are not posted.

Why is there no transparency portal? Flock offers departments an optional public page listing camera counts, search volumes, and policies. The News & Observer built its statewide investigation on them.²⁸ Dozens of North Carolina agencies have one. No portal for the Winston-Salem Police Department could be found, though the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office appears on other agencies' network lists.

None of the promises in that first section are unreasonable. They are also, right now, unverifiable from the outside.

FAQ

What are the Flock cameras in Winston-Salem?

They are automated license plate readers made by Flock Safety. Winston-Salem approved 25 of them in a January 2023 pilot. Mounted about 13 feet up on slim poles and powered by small solar panels, they photograph passing license plates, convert them to text, and compare them against databases of vehicles tied to investigations.

What do Winston-Salem's Flock cameras record?

According to the Winston-Salem Police Department's FAQ, the cameras photograph and read passing plates. WSPD says they do not record video, use facial recognition, identify drivers or passengers, or issue traffic tickets, and that a camera cannot follow a vehicle once it leaves the frame.

How long do Flock cameras keep your license plate data?

North Carolina law (N.C.G.S. 20-183.32) caps retention at 90 days unless a warrant or preservation request extends it. Flock has said it deletes plate data at 30 days, and the city describes images as tagged with an automatic expiration marker in Amazon's cloud.

Who can search Winston-Salem's Flock camera data?

Flock's system is a searchable network rather than a standalone city system. Locally, a WSPD presentation lists the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office, Winston-Salem State University Police, and Wake Forest University Police on the same network. Because the wider network is searchable across jurisdictions, out-of-state agencies have also run searches against North Carolina cameras.

How many Flock cameras does Winston-Salem have?

The public figure is 25, approved in the January 2023 pilot — roughly three per ward across the city's eight wards. No more recent count has been published by the city.

How much do Winston-Salem's Flock cameras cost?

The first year was free through a donated pilot that WFMY News 2 and FOX8 valued above $71,000. After that, Triad City Beat reported the price at about $2,500 per camera per year.

Footnotes

1. Triad City Beat — "Winston-Salem city council approves installation of 25 license-plate cameras throughout the city" (January 2023). The unanimous vote, 25 readers across eight wards, the 24-vs-25 discrepancy, the $2,500-per-camera annual cost, the 30-day deletion figure, and Toney's note about a future funding request. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

2. Forbes Cloud 100 coverage of Flock Safety, via Police1 (September 2025). More than 80,000 cameras across American cities. ↩

3. City of Winston-Salem — "What is Automated License Plate Reader Technology?" and the Police ALPR Information FAQ (cityofws.org). What the cameras do and don't do, the six approved search reasons, logging and twice-a-year audit commitments, retention, and camera placement. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

4. North Carolina General Statute 20-183.32. The 90-day retention cap unless extended by warrant or preservation request. ↩

5. WFMY News 2 — "Winston-Salem police testing out new license plate cameras" (March 2022). The donated-pilot value. ↩

6. FOX8 WGHP — "Winston-Salem police consider ... license plate reading cameras to curb crime" (March 2022). The donated-pilot value. ↩

7. Winston-Salem Journal — "Real time crime center keeps watch in Winston-Salem." The roughly $550,000 spent building the Real Time Crime Center in 2022. ↩

8. Winston-Salem Journal — "City officials are weighing automated license plate reader pilot program" (November 2022). Assistant City Manager Patrice Toney on the nearly-100-officer shortage. ↩

9. 88.5 WFDD — "Winston-Salem joins pilot for license plate reading cameras" (March 2022). Assistant Police Chief William Penn Jr. on automation. ↩

10. Triad City Beat — "'It's an invasion of privacy:' Residents react to new license-plate readers coming to Winston-Salem" (January 2023). Annette Scippio's concerns and resident reactions. ↩

11. Winston-Salem Police Department — Flock Safety License Plate Reader (LPR) presentation (cityofws.org). Agencies on the shared network, including the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office, Winston-Salem State University Police, and Wake Forest University Police. ↩

12. 404 Media — reporting on the Johnson County, Texas ALPR search (May and June 2025). The "had an abortion, search for female" query and the obtained logs. ↩

13. Electronic Frontier Foundation — "She Got an Abortion. So A Texas Cop Used 83,000 Cameras to Track Her Down." The search's reach across 6,809 networks, including states where abortion is legal. ↩

14. ABC7 Chicago — remarks of Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias (June 2025). The referral to the attorney general and Flock cutting off 62 out-of-state agencies and flagging "abortion" and "immigration" searches. ↩

15. 404 Media — reporting that ICE, with no Flock agreement, asked local departments to run more than 4,000 searches on its behalf. ↩

16. Flock Safety — "Does Flock Share Data With ICE?" (flocksafety.com). No ICE contract; federal agencies removed from national lookup in August 2025. ↩

17. The Bend Source — "Federal Immigration Officials Made 279 Queries into Bend's Flock Safety Data in its First Three Weeks." ↩

18. Institute for Justice — misuse-case tally (24 documented cases as of mid-July 2026) and its Norfolk litigation materials. ↩ ↩²

19. WLOS — reporting on the July 2026 charges against Charlotte-Mecklenburg officer Seth Elliot. ↩

20. DeFlock ILM — Flock audit records obtained by request for N.C. A&T State University's 16-camera campus system: 3,487 agencies ran 1.4 million searches in three months, most from outside North Carolina. ↩

21. Courthouse News Service — "Judge holds Norfolk's license plate reader use constitutional" (January 2026). U.S. District Judge Mark Davis's 51-page ruling of Jan. 27, 2026. ↩

22. WHRO — "A federal judge ruled Norfolk's Flock surveillance cameras don't invade people's privacy, yet" (February 2026). Davis's "not today" caveat. ↩

23. Chatrie v. United States — U.S. Supreme Court, decided June 29, 2026, 6-3. ↩

24. Truthout — "SCOTUS Ruling Could Be Bad News for Flock But Won't Stop Mass Surveillance." Michael Soyfer's comment and the 113,000-reader figure. ↩

25. The News & Observer — "After battle with regulators, Flock Safety can install surveillance cameras across NC." The Alarm Systems Licensing Board fight, the October 2023 halt order, and Flock's tally of ~100 agencies and 400+ customers statewide. ↩ ↩²

26. WLOS — "Damaged Flock camera in North Carolina town sparks online debate over surveillance tech" (July 2026). The Rutherfordton camera. ↩

27. FOX8 WGHP — "North Carolina police warn against destroying Flock cameras" (July 2026). Cameras cut down at a Wake Forest park, the "DeFlock Wadesboro" page, and Chief Michael Childers on cases his cameras helped solve. ↩ ↩²

28. The News & Observer — "Private Eyes" investigation into license plate readers in North Carolina, built on Flock transparency portals. ↩