Next time you go to a Lowe’s store in NC, ask yourself who might be watching
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Flock offered SBI access to camera data at Lowe’s and possibly Home Depot.
- SBI accepted access to cameras in NC, SC and VA.
- Records do not confirm whether Home Depot cameras were included.
Since last September, the NC State Bureau of Investigation has had the ability to keep a watchful eye over customers at Lowe’s and possibly Home Depot stores across the state, using a network of cameras that capture detailed images of vehicles passing through.
According to records obtained by The News & Observer, Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based company providing the tech, reached out to the SBI in July last year, offering to provide access to data from its cameras at the hardware stores.
SBI officials accepted the Lowe’s offer, which included access to cameras in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, records show. The documents do not say if Home Depot cameras are also covered by the agreement.
In North Carolina, local leaders have started turning away from contracts with automatic license plate reader vendors, citing intense public backlash. But state officials are working to expand the network to “all entrances and exits” to the state, The N&O has reported.
Nationally, the hardware store chains have played a key role in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown.
A top Trump official named Home Depot specifically as a location to target suspected undocumented workers, The Wall Street Journal reported last year. And a New York City comptroller called on Lowe’s to conduct an independent “human rights risk assessment” of the company’s partnership with Flock, in part because of rhetoric from Washington, D.C.
Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said allowing law enforcement access to privately-owned Flock cameras “supercharges the system.”
“It allows law enforcement to piggyback on private investments in ways that their own budgets may never allow for,” Stanley said in an interview with The N&O. “It just intensifies the mass surveillance system that companies like Flock are already building.”
The N&O reached out to Flock and Lowe’s to see how many cameras have been installed across the region, but has not received a response. SBI officials declined to comment on this story and directed The N&O to a report sent to a state legislative committee earlier this year.
Access only for ‘bona fide investigations’
Once Flock informed state officials the company would act as a go-between to get access to Lowe’s cameras, it was just over a month before the agency accepted the offer.
The information captured by the cameras would only be used by the SBI “for bona fide investigations,” SBI Director Chip Hawley said in an August 2025 email to the company.
Todd Isenhour, Lowe’s senior director of investigations and fraud prevention, approved the data-sharing agreement in early September 2025, records show.
“I have the ability to provide larger ‘search’ areas,” Isenhour said in the email to Hawley. “I went ahead and approved that as well.”
A Flock representative informed SBI officials that they’d gained access to cameras at “all Lowe’s stores in NC, SC and VA,” according to an email reviewed by The N&O.
ACLU of Virginia Policy Director Chris Kaiser said Flock’s help in getting the SBI access to cameras outside the state is “deeply concerning.”
“Flock appears to be circumventing safeguards our bipartisan legislature and former governor put in place to restrict out-of-state interests from accessing Virginians’ sensitive personal information,” Kaiser said in a statement to The N&O. “Let’s be clear: this is not about public safety. This is about private corporations trading on Virginians’ privacy for their own profit.”
Records show Flock offered the same access for its cameras owned by Home Depot, but unlike Lowe’s, “access will only be granted to camera networks located within your state,” the company emailed SBI officials last July. “No exceptions will be granted.”
A representative from Home Depot told The N&O that the company does not “grant access to our license plate readers to federal law enforcement.” The representative did not respond when a reporter clarified that the SBI is a state agency, and asked the company to confirm if it shared access.
Data concerns
Corporate use of Flock’s technology has sparked concerns outside of North Carolina.
Earlier this year, New York City Comptroller Mark Levine sent a letter to the chair of Lowe’s Sustainability Committee asking for a third-party “human rights risk assessment” spurred by the company’s use of Flock cameras — and what happens to the data they collect.
Levine, in part, oversees the New York City Retirement Systems “which are substantial long-term Lowe’s shareholders,” he wrote in the letter, and said “given the specialized nature of these risks, an independent assessment would provide the Board with the expertise necessary to exercise effective oversight.”
“These considerations have taken on added urgency in light of reported immigration enforcement actions at large retailers generally, and Lowe’s specifically,” Levine wrote.
He said public statements by Trump administration officials last year “underscore that information initially shared with local law enforcement may ultimately be accessed or used by federal immigration authorities, even when such downstream use was not the original intent.”
Stephen Miller, a top official in the Trump administration, directed immigration agents to specifically target Lowe’s competitor Home Depot, The Wall Street Journal reported last year.
In California, a class action lawsuit against Home Depot filed last month alleges “illegal, secretive, invasive, and negligent use of” Flock cameras by the company. Five plaintiffs allege their information was captured by the cameras — and that they weren’t marked according to state law.
Had they known the company installed Flock cameras in its parking lots, they “would not have patronized the store, or would have taken meaningful steps to protect” their information, the lawsuit argues.
This story was originally published June 8, 2026 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Next time you go to a Lowe’s store in NC, ask yourself who might be watching."
