LOUISBURG — The Franklin County sheriff has fired a detective and turned off the county’s Flock license-plate camera system. He said an internal audit showed the detective had been using the cameras to follow one private citizen.
Sheriff Kevin White said Friday that the audit “revealed a stream of highly unusual activity” and prompted an investigation. According to White, the investigation found that Detective Janet Leonard had been routinely using the Flock system to “track every movement of a single, private citizen” with no legitimate law enforcement purpose. White announced the findings in a Facebook post and in a release sent to news outlets Friday morning, WRAL, WNCN (CBS 17) and WTVD (ABC11) reported.
“This is unacceptable, unconstitutional, and a complete violation of privacy by someone whose entire career should have been dedicated to protecting the public,” White said, according to WRAL.
“No one is above the law, especially not those who are trusted to enforce it,” he said in the post, ABC11 reported.
White said Leonard was fired effective immediately and that the findings of the audit and investigation had been sent to the district attorney’s office. WNCN reported that as of Friday morning, no criminal charges had been filed against her. Leonard declined to speak with WRAL, and ABC11 reported that she did not provide comment. The sheriff’s statement, as reported, did not identify the person who was allegedly tracked or say how long the alleged tracking went on.
Leonard has not been charged with a crime. Anyone who is charged is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
Cameras off indefinitely
White said the county’s Flock cameras, along with the equipment, systems and servers tied to them, are suspended indefinitely while deputies review how the technology was used in the past. ABC11 reported that he warned anyone found to have improperly accessed or used the system could face consequences. WRAL reported that, according to White, the sheriff’s office has used the cameras for nearly a decade.
White said the cameras have benefits, but not at the expense of residents’ rights.
“I will stop at nothing to keep our community safe and excellent beyond measure, but I will never allow it to come at the cost of your privacy and constitutional rights,” he said, according to WRAL. “Citizens deserve transparency, and a government they can depend on to keep them safe, not a government that can be weaponized against them.”
WRAL reported that it had asked the sheriff’s office when the investigation began and how the agency would decide whether to turn the cameras back on. ABC11 said it tried several times to reach White and did not get a response.
What state law requires
Under North Carolina law, data from an automatic license plate reader may be “obtained, accessed, preserved, or disclosed only for law enforcement purposes” (G.S. 20-183.31). Before its system goes live, any law enforcement agency that uses the readers must adopt a written policy. That policy has to cover operator training, supervisory oversight, internal data security and access, and “annual or more frequent auditing” of how the system is used.
A separate section, G.S. 20-183.32, says captured plate data generally may not be kept more than 90 days unless it is preserved for a criminal or missing-persons investigation or under a search warrant. The data is confidential and exempt from public disclosure, and it may be shared only with law enforcement officials for a legitimate law enforcement purpose.
Flock’s new safeguards
The Franklin County case follows changes Flock Safety announced Aug. 13. In a company blog post, Flock said it would require all law enforcement customers to adopt its “Audit Assistance” feature by the end of this year. The feature flags abnormal search activity for an administrator to review. The company also said it would require case codes for all law enforcement searches, automatically lock out users whose activity meets its criteria for abnormal behavior, and lower its recommended default data retention to seven days.
Flock said in the same post that Audit Assistance reviews had been “associated with arrests of several law enforcement officers who allegedly abused the system.” White’s statement, as reported, did not say whether Franklin County’s audit relied on that feature.
Jeff Welty, a professor at the UNC School of Government, told WRAL that reports of Flock misuse are becoming more public. “Anytime law enforcement or any particular group of people has access to a large amount of information, there’s going to be a risk of misuse and a need for appropriate regulation and policies to address it,” he said.
Closer to home
Local agencies in Catawba County have taken different paths on Flock this month. Hickory police launched an online Flock transparency portal on Sept. 17. The department said the portal shows data retention and sharing settings and the number of searches in the past 30 days. Newton police also use Flock, and on Sept. 24 City Council member Bill Powell said he trusts the department’s use of the cameras but is “watching the corporate side very carefully.” The Town of Catawba is taking down its trial cameras after the Town Council declined to keep paying for them.
Earlier coverage: Newton council member Bill Powell says he is watching Flock’s ‘corporate side’ · Hickory PD launches Flock license-plate camera transparency portal · Town of Catawba will take down license-plate cameras after council declines funding
Source note
This story began with a Facebook post by WXII 12 News on Sept. 25, 2026. Sheriff Kevin White’s statements are taken from reporting by WRAL, WTVD/ABC11 and WNCN/CBS 17, which quoted his Facebook post and news release. Catawba First News did not view the sheriff’s Facebook post directly. State law is quoted from the N.C. General Statutes, G.S. 20-183.31 and G.S. 20-183.32. Flock’s policy changes come from the company’s Aug. 13 blog post. Local background comes from earlier Catawba First News reporting.
Cover: Photo: MiracleMiles / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0, cropped and resized. A Flock Safety license-plate reader in Eatontown, N.J., July 29, 2026. File photo, not the site; not a Franklin County camera. File page.
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