NEWS — August 8, 2026:NEWS — August 8, 2026: A Mooresville officer accused of using Flock cameras to track her boyfriend's ex-wife is one of several cases raising questions about who can access increasingly widespread license-plate surveillance systems.
Flock cameras — automated cameras that read and record vehicle license plates — are becoming an increasingly common law-enforcement tool across North Carolina and the United States..
The technology can help officers locate stolen vehicles, find wanted suspects and assist in serious criminal investigations. But as the number of cameras and the ability of agencies to search information collected across jurisdictions grow, recent cases of alleged misuse are raising another question: Are laws and oversight keeping pace with the technology?
A recent case in Mooresville illustrates exactly where that concern can arise.
Former Mooresville Police Officer Elizabeth Anne Snowman was arrested after an internal audit of the department's license plate reader system uncovered what police allege were 31 searches conducted for personal reasons.
According to police and court records reported by news organizations covering the case, investigators allege Snowman used Flock license plate reader information to locate or track her boyfriend's ex-wife, including searches involving another state. She was charged with misdemeanor computer access and released on a $5,000 bond.
Snowman has been charged, not convicted, and the allegations against her remain to be resolved in court.
The significance of the case extends beyond the conduct of one officer. Police say the activity was discovered through an audit of the system — demonstrating both the potential for misuse by someone with authorized access and the importance of maintaining records showing who searches the system and why.
Not Just a Mooresville Issue
The Mooresville case follows another recent North Carolina case involving a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officer accused of conducting an unauthorized Flock license plate search for a non-law-enforcement purpose.
Similar concerns have surfaced elsewhere in the United States. Investigations in several states have examined allegations that law-enforcement personnel used license plate reader systems for purposes unrelated to legitimate police work. Some investigations have resulted in discipline, termination, resignation or criminal charges.
Flock Safety has maintained that auditing capabilities built into its systems provide agencies with a way to identify improper searches and hold users accountable.
That distinction is important.
The concern is not necessarily that the technology itself is being illegally operated. In several cases, the alleged misuse involves people who were legitimately authorized to access law-enforcement systems but are accused of using that access for an illegitimate purpose.
What Does a Flock Camera Actually Do?
Flock Safety is one of the largest providers of automated license plate reader technology, commonly called ALPRs.
Unlike a traditional traffic camera intended primarily to document a traffic violation, an ALPR records information about vehicles passing within its view. Depending on the system, that information can include the license plate, time, location and characteristics of the vehicle.
Law enforcement can search collected information during an investigation or receive alerts when a vehicle associated with certain law-enforcement information passes a camera.
The individual camera is only part of the technology's power.
When agencies are permitted to share information or search information collected by cameras operated by other participating agencies, what once consisted of isolated cameras can become part of a much larger searchable network.
That growing interconnectedness is one reason today's ALPR technology presents questions different from the license plate readers police have used for years.
North Carolina Law Draws a Line
North Carolina has regulated law-enforcement use of automatic license plate readers for years.
State law defines legitimate law-enforcement purposes to include criminal investigations, arrests and prosecutions, apprehending individuals with outstanding felony warrants, locating missing or endangered people and locating lost or stolen vehicles.
State law also restricts how ALPR information may be accessed, preserved and disclosed.
Agencies using ALPR systems are required to maintain policies addressing issues including training, data retention, information sharing, supervisory oversight, security and access.
North Carolina law also provides for auditing of ALPR use and establishes criminal penalties for certain unauthorized access, preservation or disclosure of information.
In other words, having legitimate access to the system does not automatically make every search legitimate.
That is the line recent cases are testing.
North Carolina Is Expanding the Technology
Automated license plate readers are not new, but their deployment, sophistication and connectivity have expanded substantially.
North Carolina established a pilot program allowing the State Bureau of Investigation and North Carolina Department of Transportation to enter agreements involving ALPR cameras placed on state-owned or state-maintained highway rights-of-way.
The program began under legislation enacted in 2023 and was subsequently modified as the state evaluated broader use of the technology.
More recently, North Carolina has moved toward expanding the ability to deploy ALPR technology on state-maintained roads.
The distinction matters.
The story is not that North Carolina suddenly legalized license plate readers. Local and state law-enforcement agencies have used ALPR technology for years.
What is changing is the scale at which the technology can be deployed, connected and searched.
The Cameras Are Already in Western North Carolina
This is not technology operating somewhere far from Western North Carolina.
The Asheville Police Department publicly confirms that it uses two ALPR systems: fixed Flock Safety cameras and Axon license plate recognition technology integrated with police vehicles.
Asheville describes the systems as investigative tools used to identify stolen vehicles, wanted suspects and missing people, among other legitimate public-safety purposes.
Henderson County provides another example of the amount of information these systems can generate.
According to the Henderson County Sheriff's Office Flock transparency portal, the department had 13 cameras reporting more than 517,000 vehicle detections during a recent 30-day period, along with 301 search sessions. The portal lists a 30-day data-retention period.
Similar Flock and ALPR deployments have been documented elsewhere across Western North Carolina, including Buncombe, Haywood, Polk and Macon counties and municipalities within the region.
Those numbers do not mean hundreds of thousands of people are suspected of crimes.
They demonstrate something different: modern ALPR systems can collect enormous amounts of information about ordinary vehicle movement while looking for the relatively small number of vehicles relevant to law enforcement.
That capability is precisely what makes the technology valuable to police — and what makes policies controlling access important.
Macon County Shows Local Governments Still Have a Choice
Western North Carolina also provides an example of what can happen when local officials reconsider participation.
In July 2026, the Macon County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to withdraw county funding for Flock cameras used by the Sheriff's Office. Approximately $47,000 had been associated with funding 12 cameras.
The decision followed public discussion surrounding the technology and concerns about its use.
The action is important beyond Macon County because it demonstrates that decisions surrounding ALPR technology are not necessarily permanent.
Local governments can examine expenditures, contracts and policies. Elected officials can question how systems are being used, what safeguards are in place and whether taxpayers should continue funding them.
Residents can also attend public meetings, contact elected representatives and request available public records concerning policies, contracts and expenditures.
A community can ultimately decide that the public-safety benefits justify the technology, that additional safeguards are necessary, or that it no longer wants to fund the system.
The Technology Has Real Public-Safety Benefits
Any discussion of ALPR surveillance should also recognize why police departments are adopting the systems.
License plate readers can perform in seconds a task that once required an officer to physically see a vehicle, recognize its significance and manually check the plate.
Departments across the country have credited ALPR systems with helping recover stolen vehicles, locate wanted suspects, identify vehicles connected with serious crimes and find missing or endangered people.
For a department with limited personnel, having cameras monitoring major roads around the clock can provide investigative capabilities that would otherwise require substantial manpower.
Those benefits are real.
So are the questions created by placing increasingly powerful databases in the hands of large numbers of authorized users.
The Fine Line Between Access and Use
The emerging issue surrounding ALPR technology may ultimately be less about whether police should possess the technology and more about what happens after they do.
An officer searching for a vehicle connected to a kidnapping, stolen automobile or felony investigation represents precisely the type of use these systems were designed to support.
An authorized officer using the same database to locate an ex-spouse, romantic partner, neighbor or another person for personal reasons is an entirely different matter.
The computer may perform both searches equally well.
The Difference is the Purpose of the Person Sitting Behind It
That makes auditing, supervisory oversight, access controls and consequences for misuse increasingly important as these systems grow.
The Mooresville case also demonstrates why audit logs matter. The alleged activity was discovered because searches could be reviewed after they occurred.
But it raises another question: How frequently should those audits occur?
As systems become larger and increasingly interconnected, policymakers, law-enforcement agencies and communities may have to decide whether existing safeguards remain sufficient.
A Technology Growing Faster Than the Public Conversation
Automated license plate readers have existed for years. What is relatively new is the scale at which cameras can collect information and the ability to turn geographically separated cameras into searchable networks.
North Carolina communities are confronting that change in different ways.
Some law-enforcement agencies are expanding their use because they consider ALPRs valuable public-safety tools.
The state has moved toward broader deployment on state-maintained roads.
Other communities are reconsidering their participation.
And recent cases involving alleged misuse by law-enforcement personnel demonstrate that concerns about unauthorized use are no longer merely theoretical.
The debate does not have to be reduced to choosing between public safety and privacy.
The more immediate question is whether the rules, auditing, transparency and public oversight surrounding this rapidly expanding technology are growing as quickly as the technology itself.
For Western North Carolina residents, that conversation is no longer about cameras somewhere else. They are Already Here.
Sources/Credits: North Carolina General Assembly; North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation; City of Asheville and Asheville Police Department; Henderson County Sheriff's Office/Flock Safety Transparency Portal; Macon County Board of Commissioners records and local reporting; Mooresville Police Department and court records; Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department; Flock Safety; and published news reports documenting the cases referenced in this article.