Early last year, New Hanover County signed a two-year $219,000 contract with Flock to provide 20 automatic license plate readers and eight additional live-video surveillance cameras, which are used by the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office.
According to Republican Commissioner and Chairwoman LeAnn Pierce, the first part of the contract was funded by federal money that the county didn’t control, but during the budget season this year, local county money was used to fund the contract. Pierce, as well as other commissioners, have said that they were not aware of the details of the contract.
But they’re certainly aware now. After weeks of reporting from WECT, followed by other media outlets (including a long-form piece on concerns about Flock in WHQR’s Sunday Edition), dozens of protestors showed up at the Board of Commissioners meeting last week. DeFlock ILM, a local chapter of a nationwide organization protesting Flock, helped organize the demonstration, which drew a politically diverse crowd of people with a host of concerns, including data access oversight, profiling and other abuses by officers, ongoing civil suits challenging the constitutionality of these cameras, and broader and more philosophical concerns about government surveillance in general. Emails to the county on the issue have been overwhelmingly opposed to Flock cameras.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Pierce and her fellow commissioners thanked people for sharing their concerns and said they would continue to explore and discuss the issue.
On Wednesday morning, Pierce provided an update on Facebook, saying the county would review those concerns.
“Flock is powerful technology, and the safeguards on its use must match or exceed that power. Before this Board commits any more taxpayer dollars or considers renewal, we owe our citizens a thoughtful, comprehensive review of how this system is being used and whether appropriate safeguards are in place to protect both legitimate law-enforcement purposes and the privacy and civil liberties of our residents,” Pierce wrote.
The concerns will include, but won’t be limited to, “safeguards raised by our community, including reducing the length of data retention, eliminating nationwide searches, requiring a case number or legitimate law-enforcement purpose for each search, and conducting frequent audits of system use.”
In a phone interview, Pierce told WHQR she wanted to be clear that Sheriff Ed McMahon had expressed a willingness to work on the issue. She said County Manager Chris Coudriet and staff met with McMahon and deputies to discuss the issue on Friday.
“The Sheriff is very cooperative on almost all of these issues — It's very important that we work with the sheriff's department. We're not working against him,” Pierce said.
Pierce added that McMahon was willing to discuss specific bones of contention, like requiring specific criminal case numbers — not just a general reason — for accessing data, and updates to the data retention policy. McMahon recently announced his office would only keep data for 30 days, down from 90. However, many protestors noted that Flock itself, responding to sustained criticism, has now recommended lowering that timeframe to one week.
Pierce, along with Democratic Commissioner Rob Zapple, both expressed concerns to WHQR about data security.
Pierce said the Sheriff’s Office is also willing to discuss its current data-sharing arrangements. Republican Commissioner Dane Scalise agreed that it was a complicated issue with some real concerns, adding that commissioners “owed it to the elected sheriff and our citizens to find a potential solution.”
The current contract is up early next year. It was signed in February 2025; Pierce said she thought it would run out in March of next year. That’s when she said she wanted to see the Board of Commissioners have a public conversation about Flock and any additional safeguards added by NHCSO — before any additional county money is spent.
“So that's when commissioners are going to have to have a healthy conversation about whether or not we move forward. And did the safeguards work? That's the question,” Pierce said.
Notably, the Board of Commissioners could look different next year: Zapple and Pierce are both up for re-election, and Scalise is running for state representative.
Pierce reiterated that the public was owed a deliberate and transparent, and added that she was confident they could reach a consensus with the Sheriff that balanced public concerns with the needs of law enforcement and public safety.
“I want it to be known that we want to keep people safe and people's privacy protected, and that they're not exclusive of each other,” she said.
