St. Johns County, Florida, revisited its Flock Safety license plate reader program after resident Debra Campbell said records showed her plate was captured 154 times in 30 days, including 23 times on one trip to a family birthday party.
The debate centered on whether the county should keep the cameras on its rights-of-way.
Here's what to know
News4Jax reported that commissioners agreed to revisit the issue on Oct. 20, when the county's use of Flock Safety automatic license plate reader cameras returns for discussion. That gave residents another opening to argue whether the devices belong on county roads.
Before setting that discussion, commissioners heard more public comment on the camera program. Campbell told the station she had asked the sheriff's department for her own records and was alarmed by how much of her driving had been tracked.
"In just 30 days, cameras on the roads captured my plate 154 separate times," Campbell said. "On one single afternoon when I just drove to a family birthday party, the system logged my plate 23 times."
She noted the response included 119 photos of her vehicle, but Campbell told commissioners the more troubling issue was the apparent error rate.
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"Eleven cars were not mine — but captured my licence plate as those cars," she alleged to News4Jax.
Commissioner Christian Whitehurst pushed to return the matter to the board.
"On Sept. 15, this board agreed in spirit of compromise we would have a roundtable with law enforcement to discuss Flock cameras," Whitehurst declared, per News4Jax. "That meeting never materialized."
More background
A system intended to help solve crimes can also create a record of where law-abiding drivers have been, raising questions about privacy, accuracy, and who controls the data.
Sheriff Rob Hardwick has continued to frame the cameras as a helpful investigative resource. According to the station, he cited 2026 department figures of 29 stolen vehicles recovered, 23 stolen license tags recovered, 35 wanted people arrested, 62 people charged, 132 felony charges cleared, 54 misdemeanor charges cleared, and 35 missing people recovered.
He has also said the system is only one lead among many, and sheriff's office officials have emphasized that the cameras neither use facial recognition nor collect cellphone data.
What's being done?
The next formal step was the Oct. 20 meeting, where residents and officials could debate crime-fighting results and the tradeoffs of a technology that can monitor routine movement.
The sheriff's office says it has already changed several practices in response to the criticism, as News4Jax detailed. Officials cut their data-retention period to 30 days, restricted access to the system, and ended data sharing with outside agencies.
A separate state directive is also forcing changes on the ground, the station reported. The sheriff's office said it would remove about half of its roughly 182 cameras because they are on state rights-of-way, and Hardwick said the units would not be relocated elsewhere.
Residents are organizing as well. Campbell told News4Jax that more than 1,000 people have signed her petition and that her Facebook page has grown to more than 6,400 followers in just over two months.
"Private companies building a permanent inventory database of our daily lives on public roads," she mused. "Where do we draw the line?"
After two hours of discussion Tuesday, the County Commission agreed to remove Flock cameras on county-maintained roads by a narrow vote, per JaxToday. Christian Whitehurst, one of the commissioners who voted to remove the cameras, said he would be open to reintroducing the cameras if Florida lawmakers added more "guardrails on this technology."
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