6,000 or 2.98 Million? Both Numbers Are Right.

On August 4, WECT reported that the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office has searched its Flock system roughly 6,000 times since June 1, 2026. (WECT) We have reported that the county’s Flock network was searched 2,980,082 times. Readers have asked, fairly: which is it?

Both. They are not the same measurement. Flock keeps two different audit logs, and these two numbers come from the two different logs, pulled over two different time windows. Once you see the difference, the numbers stop competing — and read together, they tell the real story.

An Organization Audit counts what you did. A Network Audit counts what was done to you.

Every Flock agency can pull two different audit views:

• The Organization Audit is outbound — the searches your own agency runs. This is the 6,000. WECT’s figure is the Sheriff’s Office’s own search activity, its deputies running lookups, over about two months.
• The Network Audit is inbound — every search run by anyone on the network that reaches into your cameras. This is the 2.98 million. It counts how many times New Hanover’s cameras were queried — by the county, yes, but overwhelmingly by other agencies, in other states, over roughly sixteen and a half months.

One log looks out. The other looks in. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions.

Two months versus sixteen and a half

The windows differ too. WECT’s 6,000 covers June 1 forward — about two months. Our 2.98 million covers the full production the county released: January 23, 2025 through June 5, 2026 — roughly sixteen and a half months. Before you account for direction at all, one number already spans eight times the calendar of the other.

The county’s own searches are the small slice. The network is the ocean.

Put them side by side and the point sharpens. The Sheriff’s own use runs on the order of ~3,000 searches a month (6,000 over two months). The network log runs on the order of ~180,000 searches a month (2.98 million over sixteen and a half). The county’s own activity — the 6,000 WECT counted — is a real number, and it shows how routine this tool has become even for the local office. But it is a small fraction of the traffic through these cameras. The overwhelming majority of searches touching New Hanover’s cameras are run by someone other than New Hanover.

And that is exactly the number the county will not let you see behind. On all 2.98 million inbound rows, the searching agency is redacted to “***.” WECT’s 6,000 is the part we can see — the county’s own. The 2.98 million is the part the county blacked out: who, outside New Hanover, has been reaching into these cameras, and under whose rules.

Both true. Both from Flock’s own logs.

So there is nothing to reconcile. WECT pulled the Organization Audit — outbound, about two months — and reported 6,000. We pulled the Network Audit — inbound, about sixteen and a half months — and reported 2.98 million. Same system, two honest measurements. If anything, reading them together is clarifying: the local office’s own use is heavy and routine, and it is still dwarfed by the national network the Sheriff enrolled this county in — the one whose users he will not name. (See the records for yourself.)