ORLANDO, Fla. — Republican gubernatorial candidate James Fishback called for Florida to ban Flock surveillance cameras and defund contracts for the technology during a rally Tuesday outside the U.S. Courthouse in Orlando.
“We have to stop it here in Florida,” Fishback said. “We must block Flock now.”
Fishback said his opposition to the cameras is centered on privacy and civil liberties.
“This is about right vs. wrong,” he said. “It is wrong to have Flock surveillance cameras in every corner of our state.”
He wants Flock contracts to be defunded, arguing that the technology creates risks for people who have not committed crimes.
“You are not going to trade the liberty of your citizens for a temporary boost in security,” Fishback said. “It’s very temporary — what we’re seeing across the nation with Flock cameras is wrongful accusations against the innocent.”
A Spectrum News station in California reported this year that three cities in that state ended their use of the cameras after officials said they learned federal agencies had access to their cameras in 2024.
Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood, however, defended the use of the cameras, saying they have played a role in multiple cases handled by his agency.
“Why would you handcuff us and take something away that is saving lives and arresting the bad guys?” Chitwood said.
According to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office’s license plate reader policy, the technology is used to scan, detect and identify license plate numbers that appear on selected hot lists. The policy defines a hot list as files extracted from various law enforcement resources that contain listings such as stolen license plates, stolen vehicles, wanted persons or other vehicles or people actively being sought by a law enforcement agency.
“The Flock data that operates on what we put into it,” Chitwood said. “Is it a stolen car? Is it a wanted car? Is it a missing person? Is it an Alzheimer’s subject? That is the data that’s put in that triggers the alert.”
Chitwood said the agency’s data is shared with other agencies, but only for legitimate law enforcement purposes.
“Our data is proprietary,” he said. “It’s only to be shared with other law enforcement agencies for investigative purposes.”
Sheriff’s Office officials said the data is cleared every 30 days, and Chitwood said any misuse of the cameras will not be tolerated.
“You will lose your job, and we will refer you to prosecution for the State Attorney’s Office,” Chitwood said.
According to information from the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, four cameras have recently been vandalized in Edgewater, DeBary and DeLand — two poles were cut down, one was bent and one camera was covered with a plastic bag.