Every time someone actually asks voters about license plate cameras, the cameras lose. Not narrowly, and not only in places you would expect. Meanwhile a randomized experiment found something worse for any chief who wants to keep them: simply explaining to people what these cameras do measurably lowers their trust in the police.
Keep the partisan composition in mind, because it kills the laziest response to this campaign. Opposition to warrantless mass plate surveillance is not a left-wing position. In Knox County it was the position of a Republican-leaning, older, highly engaged electorate that already knew what the program was.
Merola, Lum and Murphy ran a randomized survey experiment with 405 respondents. One group read brief, factual descriptions of what license plate recognition technology does. The control group did not. The group that learned about the technology reported significantly lower trust in law enforcement, and their strong agreement with positive statements about police, including that police respect individual rights, declined. Most respondents had no idea the technology was in use before being told.
This is the part that matters for Apex. The damage to public trust is not caused by activists, or by bad press, or by one officer misusing the system. It is caused by residents finding out what the system does. Every public information campaign defending this program is also, mechanically, the thing that erodes confidence in the department running it.
The mechanism behind that result is well established in the procedural justice literature, which finds that people's willingness to accept police authority depends more on whether processes feel fair and transparent than on outcomes. That body of work is theory and correlation rather than a direct test of surveillance, but it is the accepted explanation for why a program adopted with no hearing and no vote costs a department legitimacy even when the technology works.
| Finding | Number |
|---|---|
| Disapprove of the job ICE is doing | 60 percent, against roughly 30 percent who approve |
| Say ICE's actions are making Americans less safe | 62 percent, against 37 percent who say more safe |
| Say ICE has “gone too far” | 65 percent, up from 54 percent in June 2025 |
| Partisan split on ICE disapproval | 91 percent of Democrats, 66 percent of independents. 73 percent of Republicans approve. |
Regionally the picture is the same or worse. The University of Houston Hobby School surveyed 1,500 residents across nine Texas counties in April 2026, releasing results in May. 59.3 percent opposed cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, and 63.6 percent opposed their county sheriff working with ICE. In the same survey, 69.9 percent disapproved of how ICE is handling its job and 53.9 percent supported eliminating the agency entirely.
Put that against the record in Apex. APD's own Network Audit logs 9,700 searches by federal accounts reaching Apex cameras between January 2 and April 1, 2026, including 166 on January 29, the day the Chief told Council that Apex does not share with federal entities, hard stop. Roughly 3,300 searches of Apex cameras since January carry immigration-related reasons, run by outside agencies. The records are here.
This is the part that should be in front of the Public Safety Committee. Chiefs and sheriffs are not abandoning these systems because activists asked. They are doing it because they can see what it is costing them.
| Where | What happened |
|---|---|
| Madison Heights, Michigan | On October 11, 2026 the city announced it will disconnect the three Flock cameras it runs and will not renew the contract. The cameras had been covered and out of use since September 23 while the city waited for Flock to show that appropriate safeguards were in place and to provide guidance on the system’s use. The city said the company has been unable to do so. |
| Oshkosh, Wisconsin | Council renewed the Flock contract 5 to 2 on April 21, 2026. Less than 24 hours later it voted 7 to 0 to rescind, after the police chief said Flock representatives had misrepresented whether the system creates vehicle “heat maps.” Reported as the shortest gap on record between approving and cancelling a Flock contract. |
| Lynchburg, Virginia | On August 19, 2026 the police department paused all 15 of its fixed cameras pending an independent third-party review, stating it wanted to listen to community feedback and maintain public trust. The department was explicit that this was not prompted by misuse of its own system. |
| Henry County, Virginia | On August 14, 2026 the sheriff suspended all access to the Flock system effective immediately, citing privacy concerns, constitutional principles and the changing national landscape, and began dismantling 14 cameras the following week. |
| Henry County, Illinois | On August 20, 2026 the sheriff's office announced it would end its 8-camera program effective August 31. |
| Knox County, Tennessee | The sheriff's office paused its plan for nearly 300 cameras in August 2026 and then opted out, the same month the poll above was published. |
| The Triangle | Chatham County terminated in April 2026. Pittsboro voted to end its programme in May with a July 1 removal deadline. Hillsborough dropped an $81,500 contract over data-sharing language. More than 80 localities nationwide had dropped Flock by May 2026. |
Every one of those is a department that concluded the reputational cost was higher than the investigative benefit. Apex is being asked to reach the opposite conclusion on the same evidence, at the same moment, with 9,700 federal searches in its own audit log.
People are not reacting to a hypothetical. They are reacting to reporting.
No scientific survey of Apex residents on this program has ever been commissioned, by the Town, by the department, or by us. Council has never measured local opinion on a surveillance system it has never voted on. That is its own finding.
What the record does contain: on August 11, 2026 the Council chamber filled and the town opened overflow seating on the third floor. Eight residents spoke against surveillance technology. One spoke in favour. Council pulled a four-year Axon technology amendment off the consent agenda before public comment began.
We run a poll on our own front page. It is a self-selected click poll on an advocacy site, it is not evidence, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. If the Town wants a defensible number for Apex, it can commission one before it decides whether to renew. We would publish the result either way.
DeFlock Apex is a resident-led project. If a figure here is wrong, tell us which one and where. contact@deflockapex.org
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