Imagine your county announces that its license plate reader program is over. A couple of weeks later, you drive past one of those cameras and it’s still beside the road. Was the announcement wrong? Is the camera still recording?
In New Hanover County, North Carolina, those were reasonable questions after commissioners voted on September 8, 2026, to cancel the county’s Flock Safety contract. Sheriff’s Office employees lost access to the system and national sharing was disabled. But some camera equipment remained physically in place while the removal process continued.
The county’s experience illustrates something easy to miss in stories about camera shutdowns: ending a contract, turning off data collection and removing equipment are three different things.
Why did commissioners cancel the program?
The New Hanover County Board of Commissioners voted 4–0 at a special September 8 meeting. WECT covered the vote and the Sheriff’s Office response. Commissioner Dane Scalise made the motion; Commissioner Bill Rivenbark attended remotely but could not vote.
People had been asking questions for weeks. At an August 17 hearing, 41 residents signed up to speak against or question the cameras. Port City Daily reported concerns about where cameras were located, who could search the information and how closely the original agreement had been reviewed.
Several commissioners made a point of not accusing Sheriff Ed McMahon or his deputies of deliberately abusing the system. They were deciding whether the government should keep operating a searchable network with access extending beyond the county.
That’s an important distinction. Officials can question the design and oversight of a system without concluding that every employee using it has done something wrong.
How many license plate readers were involved?
The county contract reviewed by Port City Daily cost approximately $219,000 and covered 36 cameras of different kinds. Twenty were automatic license plate readers. Others included Flock Condor video cameras, which serve different surveillance purposes.
So saying the county had 36 ‘plate readers’ would be misleading. And canceling its Flock arrangement should not be taken as proof that every security camera operated by county government was going away.
The county also didn’t control every license plate reader in the surrounding area. WECT noted that state investigative bureau cameras and equipment operated by neighboring Wrightsville Beach, Kure Beach and Carolina Beach agencies were not all part of the county contract.
What did the nearly three million searches mean?
One number drew particular attention. Carolina Journal examined county records and reported about 2.98 million searches involving the network from January 2025 through June 2026. WECT also reported nearly three million searches by outside agencies. Local deputies had made roughly 6,000 searches since June 1 at the time of the September report.
Does that mean nearly three million people were suspected of crimes? No. It also does not mean every one of those searches was improper. One plate can be searched more than once, and the figures may reflect different kinds of database activity.
But the number raises a question worth asking: When a county operates only 20 plate reading cameras, why are so many outside queries associated with the network? What reasons were provided? And who was checking whether those reasons were appropriate?
A search log is a good starting point. Think of it as a record of which user looked something up and why. But a log sitting on a computer isn’t the same as an audit. Someone has to review it, identify questionable activity and take action when needed.
So were the cameras actually turned off?
After the September vote, the Sheriff’s Office said it had disabled national sharing, revoked employee access and notified Flock and the state investigative bureau. WECT published that statement. Those are steps involving the system’s access and information, not necessarily the immediate removal of each camera housing.
In a September 21 follow-up, WECT reported that Flock, which owned the equipment, said taking the cameras down could take up to 60 days. A company spokesperson said the affected cameras had been deactivated and were no longer scanning plates even though they remained visible.
That was the company’s reported status at the time, not an independently verified description of every device in November. That September reporting does not establish which cameras, if any, remain physically installed today.
The county was also seeking approximately $53,571 back for unused contract time, according to the September reporting. Seeking a refund isn’t the same as receiving it or having the amount finally agreed upon.
What about reports of misuse nearby?
At the same time, Port City Daily reported that state investigators were examining allegations involving employees in neighboring Brunswick County and Wrightsville Beach. Those were separate agency matters. The allegations should not be presented as a finding that a New Hanover County deputy improperly searched the database.
That distinction helps readers make sense of the news. One government canceled a contract because of concerns about the reach and oversight of the network. Separate allegations elsewhere required their own investigation and evidence. They shouldn’t be rolled into one accusation.
What should residents look for now?
A useful follow-up would answer three specific questions: Have the 20 county license plate readers been physically removed? What happened to records collected before September 8? And does the Sheriff’s Office still have ways to request plate records from systems owned by other agencies?
Our Atlanta article looks at efforts to audit searches while an active license plate reader program continues. New Hanover County chose to cancel its own Flock agreement. Both stories involve questions about who may look up records and who checks the rules.
The simple lesson is that seeing a camera still attached to a pole doesn’t tell you whether it is working, just as seeing an announcement that a contract ended doesn’t tell you what happened to stored data. Residents deserve an answer to both questions.
Sources
WECT, September 8, 2026: commissioners’ vote, sheriff’s statement, search counts and jurisdictional limits; Port City Daily, September 8, 2026 (updated): contract equipment, commissioners’ explanations and separate allegations; Carolina Journal, September 9, 2026: interview with commissioners and 2.98 million searches; WECT, September 21, 2026: equipment removal timeframe, deactivation and refund request.