Once another jurisdiction can search a Flock database, local authorities may lose control of it.
An agency’s 30-day deletion promise covers only its own Flock database. Once another agency can search it, local control ends.
An agency can control its accounts and retention period. Those safeguards stop once sharing begins.
That security gap applies to any Flock customer that enables sharing.
New Hanover County Sheriff's Office (NHCSO) and Carolina Beach Police Department (CBPD) offer two examples. According to the Port City Daily report, NHCSO said its office accounted for 3.9% of searches using county Flock cameras during the first half of 2026, leaving roughly 96% conducted by outside agencies. In Carolina Beach, outside agencies ran nearly three million searches in three months. The figures may differ elsewhere, but these numbers offer insight into how many queries originate outside a community
How Flock Data Sharing Has Inherent Security Risks
Local officials can set rules for their own users. Once another agency gets access, it follows its own records and evidence rules.
That agency may save a result in a case file. A 30-day local setting cannot erase that copy or determine retention, access or further sharing. Nor can it ensure another jurisdiction follows state law or local policy.
Local policy does not follow a record saved elsewhere; the recipient decides how long it stays.
Sharing does not always create a permanent copy or mean someone broke the law. But the originating agency loses sole control and cannot promise privacy or compliance without clear downstream rules.
Policy Rules Must Follow the Information
North Carolina law requires ALPR policies on retention, sharing, security, auditing and access to other systems. It limits disclosure to legitimate law-enforcement purposes and generally requires written requests.
A local policy can set access rules but cannot bind another agency without technical safeguards and enforceable agreements.
Flock says sharing is opt-in and customer-controlled. But it acknowledged it lacked distinct permissions and protocols for local compliance by federal users. The company has since announced audit tools and case-linked search codes.
Flock announced a seven-day default retention period for new law-enforcement customers, while existing customers keep their current settings. The American Civil Liberties Union said this may be an incomplete solution. In an August blog post, it stated:
"While Flock has not shortened the default retention period to the ACLU’s recommended 48 hours, its proposal may be a step in the right direction. Whether this is a real change or just another Flock PR move, however, will depend on how its “Evidence Mode” operates.
"If 'Evidence Mode' only retains hit result data that police determine may be evidence in an active investigation of a specific case, then the change may be a positive one. But if 'Evidence Mode' triggers the retention of any ALPR data that is searched, then the new mode could indefinitely retain all the ALPR data Flock collects and shares nationally. This would make Flock’s data retention problem even worse. Even if 'Evidence Mode’s' data retention hold only applies to hits returned on a given search, it would still retain significant amounts of location data on persons and vehicles who law enforcement do not suspect have engaged in any wrongdoing.
"While Flock doesn’t establish state or local ALPR data retention periods, its system empowers governments to choose their own retention periods. For states and localities that want and permit longer data retention periods, all they have to do is ask. Although Flock may not technically be the one unlocking the door to months of people’s private location data, it is responsible for building the door and handing out the keys."
Information Security Best Practice Controls Public Officials Should Require
In information security, sharing with another agency extends the original system. Responsibility does not end at handoff. At a minimum, officials should require written, enforceable terms that make the following controls apply to every recipient:
- A stated law-enforcement purpose for each search, with a case number or documented justification rather than open-ended browsing. This creates a trail supervisors can review and makes fishing expeditions easier to spot.
- Access based on least privilege: only the users and agencies that need access for a defined task should receive it. It reduces the number of people and systems that can copy sensitive records.
- Retention and deletion rules that cover results, exports, backups and copies saved in a recipient’s evidence system, with a clear process for a lawful preservation hold. Otherwise, a 30-day local promise ends the moment another agency exports a record.
- A ban on onward sharing without the originating agency’s written approval, plus the ability to suspend or revoke access when another user breaks the agreement. Without a stop button, one agency’s access can become a chain of unknown recipients.
- Complete, tamper-resistant audit logs that identify the searching agency, user, time, reason and result, and that remain visible to the agency whose cameras were searched. Flock already identifies the searching agency, but the agency renting the cameras needs access to enough detail to investigate and prove compliance.
- Regular independent review, prompt breach notice and public reporting that names the agencies with access and the rules they must follow. Residents and elected officials need enough information to judge whether those rules are enforced.
These controls cannot prevent every misuse. They let the originating agency detect abuse, cut off access and show whether its promises to residents hold after another jurisdiction enters the system. Without these information-security best practices, a shared database cannot be considered secure, regardless of its local retention policy.
What Real Control of Flock Data Requires
Best practices protect communities after sensitive information crosses agency lines. Officials should identify who can search it, what they may retain or forward, and who reviews them.
Local officials should ask their law enforcement heads: “What information-security best practices govern our Flock database and other surveillance tools?”
Don’t mistake a written local-surveillance policy for sound information security. It may not include the controls needed to protect the community.
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