Glynn County Police to expand Flock surveillance cameras

Picture this: Each time a car drives into Brunswick — a camera goes “click.” Both the vehicle’s license plate and other unique details are being recorded.

Not only is that information kept by Glynn County Police for two and a half years — it can also potentially be shared with more than 5,000 other law enforcement agencies that are clients of the surveillance systems operated by Atlanta-based Flock Safety.

The Glynn County Police Department (GCPD) has spent more than $830,000 via a state grant to install license plate readers across the county and is gearing up to expand the network to 86 cameras, according to GCPD Chief Scott Ebner. 

For three years, federal funds will pay for the controversial technology as part of the state’s Public Safety and Community Violence Reduction Grant, but it’s unclear how the county will fund the license plate readers after 2026. 

The location of the cameras offers police a powerful tool to fight property crime and locate stolen vehicles, Ebner said. He also said that it has offered leads on violent crimes, but did not offer any specific incident that the cameras have had a direct impact on solving.

Yet the technology, which has been in place in Glynn since January 2025, has raised privacy and civil rights concerns in dozens of other jurisdictions due to the mass-surveillance infrastructure that captures information about law-abiding citizens as well as potential criminal wrongdoing. 

“We’ve seen other instances in New York when a police officer drove down the street and electronically recorded license plate numbers of everyone parked near a mosque,” said Christopher Bruce, policy director at the ACLU of Georgia. “We’ve seen police officers in DC blackmail patrons at a black gay bar, who were identified using license plate readers. So it’s one of those things that can be used. We are not saying that we are anti-surveillance, but saying first invest in the community, so crime doesn’t happen.”

Bruce added that the citizens of Glynn County deserve to know how, when and where the cameras have prevented or investigated violent crime.

“If it hasn’t done it at this time, what makes him think adding more cameras is going to do that?” he asked, referring to Ebner. 

What is Flock?

Flock Safety was founded in 2017 by three Georgia Tech alumni with a mission to eliminate crime. The Atlanta-based company initially used a cellphone to take pictures of cars and identify license plates through an app, aiming to help solve a burglary that occurred in one of the founders’ neighborhoods. 

Less than 10 years later, the company has grown to serve more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies and with nearly 90,000 cameras nationwide. Flock, with $300 million in revenue, has invested $10 million in a 100,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Smyrna, Georgia, this year.

Flock utilizes a license plate reader (LPR) system, where cameras operate continuously, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and are combined with data processing to convert images of vehicles and license plates into computer-readable data. From these images, it gathers information about the car, such as the license plate number, color and model. It uses artificial intelligence to power what it calls a vehicle fingerprint search, which can analyze more unique features, such as bumper stickers, decals and roof racks.

Glynn County approved its agreement with Flock on Sept. 19, 2024, and expanded the cameras to various locations throughout the county, based on data showing where crimes occurred and the arteries that get in, out, and move across the county, without public input. 

Ebner said the number of cameras is important to be effective. Because Georgia only has license plates on the back of vehicles, a camera is needed in each direction on county roads to capture the needed information. 

He says criticism of the technology is unwarranted. 

“All it does is capture the vehicle as it passes by, and take a still photo to give us a description of the vehicle and identify a license plate,” Ebner said, referring to the Flock system. “They’re automatic license plate reader cameras. That’s what they’re designed to do.” 

During a citizens’ police academy that provides residents with insight into the internal operations of the police department, the Glynn County Patrol Commander, Captain Jeffery Williams, said that the Flock system is designed with privacy and accountability in mind, and that the data is securely stored for only 30 days. 

In an interview with The Current, however, the chief said that his department abides by state law and keeps images for 30 months. During that time, the company, not the department, stores the data itself, similar to how body camera footage is stored in the cloud. 

The synthesis of data across its customer base is one of the Flock system’s valuable assets, Ebner said. It allows his department access to real-time alerts on vehicles linked to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. 

“It’s disseminated, I wouldn’t say globally, but nationally. If people have a Flock system, they’re able to access their data regardless of where they are,” said Ebner. 

GCPD can tap into private businesses’ Flock cameras, such as Lowe’s or Home Depot, and officers can query them. Those companies’ local stores have Flock agreements, according to Ebner. Any company or agency that has an agreement can be searched. 

GCPD also receives an alert anytime a vehicle that has been linked to violent offenders or gangs comes into the county. That’s part of what Flock calls its “Unlimited Custom Hot Lists” feature. A hot list may include license plate numbers of vehicles known to be operated by what the department has labeled as “violent offenders, gang members, people with warrants, suspects of crimes and targets of drug investigations.”

Ebner said that only sergeants or higher-ranking personnel are authorized to do so. 

The hot lists are compiled from intelligence collected by GCPD or partner agencies. Ebner mentioned that the suspect in the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump was identified through a license plate reader. 

“We just don’t enter people in there because we suspect that there may be a gang member or we believe that they’re involved,” he said. “We have a specific case, we’re working. We have an investigation number. We have reason to believe or probable cause that they have this vehicle, or they’re in this vehicle, and then we enter them.”

Where does it go from here?

So far this year, over six cities have terminated their agreements with Flock, and at least a dozen have done so entirely. Bruce of the ACLU said that this is generally due to citizen backlash over the perceived invasiveness of the technology and concerns of officer misuse. 

One of the potential areas of abuse would be in a small county like Glynn, where most people know each other and the department has a history of corruption, said Bruce of the ACLU. “Who’s watching the watchers?” he asked.

Ebner said he explained that he has implemented several oversight measures to ensure accountability, including a monthly audit of who in the department is making vehicle searches and requiring officers to add a case number to every search, something that ensures they aren’t misusing the system for personal or unofficial reasons.

What can GCPD do with this? 

Flock continues to expand ways to improve its technology. This year, it announced that police departments will soon be able to obtain both still photos from its cameras as well as video, with the ability to request live feeds or 15-second clips of cars passing by the cameras.

Ebner said that he was not aware of the innovation, and the cameras in Glynn County do not have that functionality. He added that he would “love” that capability for future investigative purposes. “I think we need more,” Ebner said on the number of cameras. 

Bruce said that he is concerned about the lack of public input on the adoption of Flock cameras into the community. 

“Public hearings have to be used when you’re buying a new piece of technology, just letting the general public to be aware of these types of issues,” said Bruce. “Again, we’re not trying to say, don’t, we’re trying to say, be very wary of big brother, because that’s the course that we’re heading down with Flock cameras and other surveillance technologies.”