Southern Pines police describe 'Flock' license-plate readers as council presses on privacy and oversight

At a June 23 work session, Southern Pines Police Chief Polori described the town’s eight Flock license-plate reader (LPR) cameras and answered council questions about how the system is used, audited and governed.

Chief Polori said the cameras take still images of rear license plates and generate alerts when a plate matches entries in the National Crime Information Center database — for example, stolen vehicles, missing persons or wanted individuals. “It’s a license‑plate reader that takes a photograph at a point in time. It’s not a video,” Polori said, and emphasized that Flock “doesn’t give you any information as far as who owns a vehicle” because it does not query DMV ownership records.

Council members pressed for details about retention, oversight and risk. Polori said images are retained on Flock’s platform for 30 days unless a preservation order is sought; audit logs of searches and the reasons for them remain available for review by the department. “Our written directive … requires an audit every month,” he said, adding that the audits include the case number, reason and officer who accessed the system.

Some council members raised broader concerns about surveillance and vendor security. One councilmember said she regretted not asking more questions before the cameras were added to the budget and asked that staff continue outreach: “I’m not comfortable with the fact that it just became a part of the budget … because this is an object of surveillance of [constituents].” Chief Polori noted he was not aware of any instance in which Flock had been hacked and said the vendor reports industry-standard security measures; he also repeated that Flock does not perform facial recognition and does not provide DMV ownership data.

Policing policy and discipline for misuse were discussed. Chief Polori said staff investigations and internal affairs would address misuse and that sustained misconduct could lead to termination and possible referral to state or federal investigators for potential criminal conduct.

What happens next: Council asked staff to keep an open line of communication with the public, circulate the department’s written LPR policy and provide follow-up information about recent court rulings and outside research on LPR systems. The council did not reverse the department’s use of the system at the work session.