First Your Plate. Then Your Phone. Then You — Anywhere You Walk.

You leave the house with a phone in your pocket, a watch on your wrist, maybe AirPods in your ears. You drive to Mayfaire. You walk the Riverwalk. You pick up paint at Lowe’s. You have done nothing wrong, and you shouldn’t have to think about any of this.

First, a distinction that matters: SignalTrace is not a Flock camera. If you’re here wondering whether the Flock cameras on New Hanover’s roads can track your phone, the short answer is no — here’s exactly what Flock cameras can and can’t do. SignalTrace is a different, newer sensor, and this page is about that.

A new device is built to make you think about it. It would catalog every signal you carry — your phone, your watch, your earbuds, even the sensors in your tires — link them to your car, and store the bundle as a permanent identifier it calls your “electronic fingerprint.” It is designed to work even if your car has no license plate at all. And it does not need a road.

You were told the cameras read license plates. That was true. It is no longer the whole story.

The technology has a name — and its maker put the point in writing

The system is called SignalTrace. It is made by Leonardo, the Italian state-owned defense contractor — and it is manufactured right here in Greensboro, North Carolina. We know what it does because Leonardo told us, in their own two-page product brochure (document LEO/US/090925, © 2025, Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions, LLC). The headline reads:

“Identify Suspects Through the Electronic Devices They Carry.”

Not the vehicles they drive. Not the plates on those vehicles. The devices they carry. Read the rest in Leonardo’s own words, and the problem stops being abstract:

“SignalTrace… bridges license plate recognition data with sensor-captured device identifiers — such as those from mobile phones, Bluetooth wearables, and vehicle systems — to create a unique, trackable ‘electronic fingerprint’ for investigative use.”

“When multiple devices consistently move together with a vehicle, SignalTrace’s algorithms link them to that vehicle’s license plate and time-stamped location data… even if a suspect changes or removes a plate.”

Their brochure lists exactly what it sweeps up: RFID — key cards, asset tags, pet microchips. Bluetooth — phones, smartwatches, fitness trackers, wireless headphones. Vehicle systems — tire-pressure sensors, infotainment. Wi-Fi — hotspots, tablets, laptops.

One item should stop you cold: your tires. Federal law — the TREAD Act — requires every vehicle built since 2008 to carry tire-pressure sensors, each broadcasting a unique ID. You cannot disable it. You cannot opt out. Congress mandated that signal for safety, and SignalTrace harvests it to follow you. You never consented, because you were never asked.

And it does not need a camera or a car. The brochure says the sensors work “with or without co-located LPR cameras,” and operate “in off-road and non-traffic environments such as rail stations, event venues, and shopping centers.” A mall entrance. A concert gate. A sidewalk. Walk past one with a phone in your pocket, and you are logged.

That is the honest weight of it: you land in the database before you have done anything wrong. Leonardo calls the people it scans “suspects.” But the system does not scan for criminals — it scans everyone, and searches later. In public, you should be a person, not a signal. A search should need a reason.

We read the whole brochure — including the parts that argue against alarm

We are your neighbors in New Hanover County. We don’t enjoy thinking about this any more than you do. So we do the reading for you: we published the county’s ~$219,000 Flock contract (No. 25-0364), we obtained the 2,980,082-search audit the Sheriff’s Office released with every name redacted, and we read Leonardo’s SignalTrace brochure line by line.

That means we will also tell you what is not true, because a guide you can’t trust is no use to you:

Your Flock cameras in New Hanover County today track cars, not phones. SignalTrace is a different product, from a different company. No public record confirms SignalTrace — or any Leonardo/ELSAG equipment — deployed in this county right now. In fact, we asked: in response to a July 10, 2026 public-records request, the City of Wilmington reported that its Police Department and Purchasing/Finance Department hold no responsive records for Leonardo, the ELSAG line, or SignalTrace device-detection technology (Request 2026-604). We will not tell you it is here. We will show you where the hardware already on our poles is designed to lead.

Because the direction isn’t a guess. The same 404 Media journalist who first published Leonardo’s brochure had already reported that Flock built its own tool, “Nova,” to jump from a license plate to the person — using breach data to bridge vehicle to occupant. Flock backed off that specific method only after the reporting. The impulse didn’t leave. Leonardo simply built a cleaner path to the same destination, using the signals your devices already broadcast. Two companies, one destination, different roads. And the hardware is stamped “Made in the USA” — at Leonardo’s ELSAG plant on Tudor Lane in Greensboro. The pipeline runs through our own state.

Your plan is three steps — and it fits in three minutes

You do not need to become a surveillance expert. You need to do three things.

1. See the path. Plate → the devices that move with the car → no car required at all. That is the escalation, in Leonardo’s own words.

2. See the gap. North Carolina’s ALPR law makes misusing plate data a crime — real protection, but it stops at plates. It says nothing about Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, RFID, or your tire sensors. And while the Supreme Court’s Carpenter decision suggests persistent, population-scale location tracking can require a warrant, no court has applied it to device-signal harvesting. Unsettled law plus deployed hardware is not protection. It is an opening.

3. Ask the one question — out loud, on the record. When New Hanover County signed contract 25-0364, what language prevents sensor capability from being added to that infrastructure without a new vote of the Board? If the answer is “nothing,” the public deserves to hear a commissioner say so.

What we protect — and what we lose if we stay quiet

Stay quiet, and the upgrade never comes with a ceremony. It arrives as a hardware swap on poles you already accepted — no vote, no notice, no way to know when you pass one. The Riverwalk, Mayfaire, the Convention Center become places that log the devices on your body. You get fingerprinted for buying paint or going to church.

Speak now, and the story ends differently: commissioners answer the question on the record, the contract forbids silent upgrades, and you walk your own city as a person again — not a broadcast. That is what this is about. Not fear. Reclaiming the default that public space belongs to the public.

August 17 — the date that decides it

Your county commission or town council meets regularly. Public comment is three minutes — enough to put SignalTrace, and the question above, on the permanent record before the technology arrives, while your voice still shapes the answer. Here’s how to use the next three minutes of your life to protect the next ten years of it:

• Show up when the Board revisits Flock and ask the commissioners what stops a silent sensor upgrade.
• Sign the petition — more than 4,238 of your neighbors have already told the county this matters. Add your name.
• Share this post so your neighbors read Leonardo’s own words, not our characterization of them. Let the brochure speak for itself.
• Send us what you know. If you have information about surveillance infrastructure in New Hanover County — including any Leonardo or ELSAG equipment — reach us at info@deflockilm.org.

You were told the cameras read plates. Now you know where the poles lead. The only question left is whether this county decides on the record — or finds out later.

Primary source: ELSAG SignalTrace Intelligence System product sheet, document LEO/US/090925, © 2025 Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions, LLC. Additional sources: Joseph Cox, “This Company Will Add Phone, AirPod, and Smartwatch Trackers to License Plate Readers,” 404 Media, June 8, 2026; Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018); New Hanover County contract 25-0364. This is general information, not legal advice.