Since August I’ve been tracking automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras made by Flock Safety in Greenwood, South Carolina.
This might seem like an odd entry for a solarpunk library. It isn’t. A future worth living in is one where communities decide together what technology they use and how, and that includes technology pointed at them. Mutual aid starts with neighbours knowing what’s going on in their own town. Counting cameras, asking who can see the data and showing up at a council meeting with good questions is the same kind of work as starting a tool library: ordinary people looking after each other.
What they do
An ALPR camera photographs every vehicle that passes, reads the plate, and logs where and when it saw it. One camera is a snapshot. Dozens of them, networked and searchable, become a record of where people drive. Flock’s system lives in the cloud, and agencies can open their cameras to searches by other agencies.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s guide to the technology lays out why that matters. The cameras don’t only record suspects. They record everyone: the trip to the doctor, the church, the union hall, a friend’s house. The data is often kept for long periods and shared widely, and like any database it can be misused or breached. Errors happen too, and a misread plate can lead to a stop of the wrong person.
The count
| Agency | Cameras |
|---|---|
| Greenwood Police Department | 34 |
| Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office | 23 |
| Lander University | 8 |
| Total | 65 |
Why it matters beyond Greenwood
Sharing is the part people miss. In October 2025 the University of Washington Center for Human Rights published Leaving the Door Wide Open, built on public records. It found that at least eight Washington law enforcement agencies had turned on direct sharing of their Flock networks with U.S. Border Patrol at some point in 2025. Data collected to find stolen cars doesn’t stay with the agency that collected it unless someone makes sure it does.
The point isn’t that any particular agency here is doing that. It’s that the setting exists, it’s easy to switch on, and residents usually have no way to know whether it’s on unless they ask.
Questions worth asking
Any resident can ask these at a city or county council meeting, or in a records request under the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act:
- How long is plate data kept? Retention is set by contract and state law, so it varies from place to place.
- Which other agencies can search our cameras, and is any federal agency among them?
- Is there a written use policy, and who audits the searches?
- Who approved the cameras, and when does the contract come up for renewal?
Contract renewals are the moment of most leverage. That’s when a council can add conditions, like shorter retention, no out-of-state sharing, or a public audit log, at no cost beyond the political will to ask.
How to make a records request
South Carolina’s Freedom of Information Act (S.C. Code Title 30, Chapter 4) lets anyone ask a public body for its records. A few practical notes:
- Ask for documents, not answers. “The current contract between the City of Greenwood and Flock Safety, including any amendments” works better than “how long do you keep data?” The contract usually answers the question.
- Ask for the sharing list. Request any record of which outside agencies have been granted access to search the cameras, and when access was granted.
- Ask for the use policy and any audit reports.
- Keep it in writing, and keep a copy. Most cities and counties have a FOIA form or an email address on their website.
- Know the clock. The law sets deadlines: generally 10 business days for the agency to tell you whether it will release the records (20 if they’re more than two years old), then 30 calendar days to produce them (35 for older records). You and the agency can agree in writing to extend these. Agencies can charge reasonable fees for copying and staff time, so ask for an estimate first.
Find cameras near you
DeFlock is an open-source map of license plate readers across the U.S., built from reports by people like you. If you spot a camera that isn’t on it, you can add it. The EFF’s Atlas of Surveillance tracks which agencies use which technology, and is a quick way to see what your county has bought.
Further reading
- Leaving the Door Wide Open, University of Washington Center for Human Rights, October 2025.
- Automated License Plate Readers, EFF Street Level Surveillance. How the technology works and the risks it carries.
- DeFlock. An open-source, crowd-sourced map of ALPR cameras.
- Atlas of Surveillance, EFF. Which agencies use which surveillance technology.
- Surveillance Self-Defense, EFF. Practical privacy guides for individuals and groups.