At least, that’s one goal of the SBI’s pilot program allowing the surveillance tech to operate along state-maintained roads, the report says.
Over 100 cameras have been set up on state rights-of-way from Raleigh to Ocean Isle Beach as of early April. And the cameras have captured over 150 million scans of plates, according to the report reviewed by The News & Observer. According to the N.C. Department of Transportation, there are only about 6.7 million passenger vehicles registered in the state.
The program is overseen by the SBI and the NCDOT. Local law enforcement agencies decide whether to opt into the program.
Thirty-two agencies across the state are in the program, which became effective in 2024. That list includes the Raleigh Police Department, Wake County Sheriff’s Office, Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department and UNC Charlotte Police Department.
Some agencies that have opted in haven’t installed cameras yet. But 140 automatic license plate readers have been installed along state rights-of-way by over half of the departments that do have cameras, as of earlier this year.
Along with seeking a program extension until 2028, the SBI is asking state legislators to provide grants to local law enforcement agencies to install the cameras.
“The focus of these grants would be on major interstates and highways with the goal of covering all entrances and exits to North Carolina,” SBI Director Chip Hawley’s report said.
The N&O reached out to lawmakers on the two committees that SBI submitted its report to for comment about what the expansion could mean for North Carolina. Staffers for two elected officials said Thursday they likely couldn’t comment given busy schedules. The rest have not responded.
Local leaders have voted to terminate contracts with license-plate scanner vendors, The N&O has reported, after fierce community backlash and concerns over privacy from residents.
Millions of plates read
The agencies that opted into the program include a dozen police departments, 19 sheriff’s offices and the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, according to the report.
Not all of them have installed cameras yet. Only 17 have their networks up and running.
The report shows the Burlington Police Department and the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office each have 20 scanner locations, the highest of the agencies currently involved in the SBI’s pilot.
More cameras doesn’t always equate to more license plate reads, the report indicates. In comparison to Burlington or Harnett County’s 20, the Raleigh Police Department only has three cameras.
But they’ve logged over 14.8 million license plate captures, according to data collected through late March and provided in the report.
The data provided in the state report was submitted “without further breakdown” from the state agencies that are in the program, SBI public information director Chad Flowers told The N&O. The report doesn’t include, for example, the number of North Carolina license plates scanned or the number of scans of plates from out-of-state.
At least nine of the agencies involved in the SBI pilot program are using Flock Safety cameras or have access to its database, according to standard operating procedures attached to the report, which was delivered to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Justice and Public Safety and the Joint Legislative Transportation Oversight Committee.
Other enrolled agencies are using cameras from Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions, Motorola, and Verkada, Flowers said.
Weighing ‘negative impacts’
Law enforcement officials tout the technology as a way to catch violent criminals and solve cases. The SBI included over two dozen “success stories” in its reports to elected officials.
The cameras have helped locate a vehicle in a homicide case after the suspect fled to South Carolina and to find a missing child, according to the narratives included in the report.
But data captured by the cameras have also led law enforcement officials to make mistakes, The N&O has reported. That’s what happened o Jacqueline McNeill, a Fayetteville woman who was arrested in 2022 after police using the technology wrongly identified her car as part of a shooting investigation.
McNeill won a $60,000 settlement.
Some local governments are turning away from contracts with scanner companies due to intense backlash from community members.
Last year, the Hillsborough Board of Commissioners ended the town’s contract.
While Flock’s services could benefit officers, “we also have to weigh the potential negative impacts that the program may present to the community as a whole,” Hillsborough Mayor Mark Bell and Police Chief Jason Winn said in a joint statement at the time.
More recently, Pittsboro Commissioner Tina Thurber evoked Benjamin Franklin in an effort to sway her colleagues to terminate the town’s contract with Flock.
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little bit of temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety,” Thurber said, quoting the founding father, during a mid-May meeting.
The town board voted 4-1 to end its partnership with Flock. The company was given a July 1 deadline to remove the cameras, The N&O reported.
Nationally, Flock has been under scrutiny for the types of data it makes available for its clients and because some live-streaming surveillance cameras were left open to the public, 404 Media has reported.
© 2026 Raleigh News & Observer. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
