Three License-Plate-Reader Vendors Are Operating in North Carolina Without a State License, Complaints Allege

The complaints, filed with the state board that regulates security and alarm systems, turn on Chapter 74D of the North Carolina General Statutes, the Security Systems Licensing Act. Section 74D-2 makes it unlawful to “install, service, monitor, or respond to” cameras and “analytic capturing devices … used to detect or observe … unauthorized or illegal activity” without a license. A 2025 amendment broadened the definition to expressly reach analytic and intelligence systems — language that fits automated license plate recognition, or ALPR.

The statute is not untested. In 2023, a Wake County Superior Court judge found that Flock Safety had operated in North Carolina for years without the required license and ordered it to stop installing or maintaining its cameras except through a licensed third party. Flock has since become licensed.

On August 28, 2026, the licensing board’s director, Paul Sherwin, confirmed in writing which ALPR vendors hold a North Carolina license and which do not. According to that correspondence, Rekor, Leonardo, PlateRanger, and Axon are “not licensed, no records on file.” Two camera vendors in the group — Verkada and Motorola — are licensed, along with Flock. Each of the three complaints attaches that email as an exhibit.

Axon: a statewide footprint

The complaint against Axon Enterprise documents activity in at least eight North Carolina jurisdictions across two categories. In Asheville and Iredell County, public records show Axon sold its Fleet 3 in-car ALPR system and billed a separate “Fleet 3 Deployment” line for physically installing the cameras — $1,600 per vehicle in Asheville, $3,000 per oversized vehicle in Iredell, whose Board of Commissioners approved a five-year agreement in June 2025. The Town of Duck operates Axon Fleet ALPR under a policy effective July 31, 2026.

Axon also runs “Connect” camera-integration platforms, built on its Fusus technology, that pull private cameras into law-enforcement monitoring centers. The complaint identifies four: Connect New Hanover (New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office), ConnectRaleigh (Raleigh Police Department, continued under a ten-year, $1.6 million-a-year Axon contract), Connect Guilford County, and Connect Greensboro. In New Hanover alone, the program’s own site reports 2,147 registered private cameras and 716 integrated for live-feed access. A fifth system — Axon’s fixed “Outpost” ALPR — is proposed in Brevard, pending a September 8 city council vote.

For New Hanover County, that carries a direct local consequence. Because the Sheriff’s Office operates Axon’s Fusus platform, it appears — upon information and belief — that the New Hanover County Sheriff entered into a contract with an unlicensed company. Under Sections 74D-11(f) and 74D-14, a contract for the unlicensed installation, service, or monitoring of a security system is void and unenforceable.

Rekor and PlateRanger

The complaint against Rekor Recognition Systems centers on Madison County, where invoices show a camera “installed above” an existing dual reader, LPR hardware upgrades, a “Rekor Scout Cloud License,” and a recurring “annual camera lens cleaning” — on-site installation and service, the complaint argues, not merely software licensing. Rekor has also supplied ALPR software to UNC Greensboro since 2021.

The complaint against SoundThinking, the maker of PlateRanger, points to the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office, which the company and local news confirm operates PlateRanger ALPR cameras on public roadways that capture plates and alert deputies to vehicles tied to investigations.

What the complaints ask

Each complaint asks the board to open an investigation, issue a cease-and-desist order, and assess civil penalties of up to $2,000 per violation under Section 74D-11. Each also notes that under Sections 74D-11(f) and 74D-14, contracts for unlicensed work are void and unenforceable. The filings anticipate that the vendors will argue, as Flock did, that they are public-safety technology companies outside the statute — the argument the Wake County court rejected. These are the same private companies behind the cameras DeFlockILM has been tracing.

The three filings are public. Read them in full, with exhibits:

• Complaint against Axon Enterprise, Inc. — New Hanover, Asheville, Iredell, Raleigh, Guilford, Greensboro, Brevard, and Duck.
• Complaint against Rekor Recognition Systems, Inc. — Madison County and UNC Greensboro.
• Complaint against SoundThinking / PlateRanger — Onslow County.

Update — August 31, 2026. Director Sherwin acknowledged all three complaints. We have now filed a consolidated supplement drawn from the Board’s own file, showing it already applied the same licensing statute to this exact technology — the January 5, 2022 cease-and-desist it issued to Flock — and that Flock came into compliance only by routing its work through a licensed North Carolina intermediary, an arrangement none of these three vendors has shown. Read the supplement and all five exhibits (PDF).

DeFlockILM is a non-partisan privacy initiative in New Hanover County. This page reports on complaints it has filed with a North Carolina licensing board; it is general information, not legal advice, and creates no attorney-client relationship.