GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — Gwinnett County commissioners heard a wave of public pushback Tuesday night against the county’s 1,100 license plate reader cameras, with most speakers calling for the Flock Safety contract to be canceled over privacy and immigration enforcement concerns.
Commissioners do not take questions during public comment, so the board listened without responding as speaker after speaker made their case.
“Flock’s priority is not our safety, it is our profits,” said Lexi White, a Gwinnett County resident. “Please cancel the contracts.”
The county expanded its deal with Flock last November, adding more cameras and pushing the five-year contract past $2.2 million.
Several speakers tied the cameras to fears about cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, describing relatives and neighbors who now carry extra documentation or avoid errands out of fear of an encounter with federal agents.
“My own father, a legal citizen, carries a passport with him when he goes to work,” said one resident, who gave her name only as Aisha.
Flock says it does not share data with ICE and that federal access is turned off by default unless a community chooses to enable it.
Gwinnett County police say the cameras have helped solve cases ranging from misdemeanors to murders. Speakers pushed back on that trade-off directly.
“Which do you value more, your security and safety, or your privacy and your freedom?” asked Ryan Clark, a Norcross resident.
Others pointed to officer misuse of the technology elsewhere in Georgia.
Channel 2 Action News found more than 10 metro Atlanta officers have been fired or charged this year alone for improperly searching Flock data, including a case in Fayetteville uncovered by the company’s own audit tool.
“Any misuse of the Flock system is unacceptable, period,” Trevor Chandler, Flock Safety’s senior public affairs director, told Channel 2 Action News in an interview earlier this month. “Public safety and trust are intertwined. There is no public safety without trust in law enforcement and the tools law enforcement uses.”
Chandler said the company now offers every department it works with a tool that flags abnormal searches.
Gwinnett’s contract runs through April 2029, with the county adding new cameras every year of the deal.
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