Pasco Sheriff's License Plate Camera Deal With County Ends Today

Pasco County's agreement allowing the Sheriff's Office to mount license plate reader cameras along county roads expires today, Sept. 30, ending a program that has run since December 2024 and drawn growing objections from commissioners and residents over privacy.

Sheriff Chris Nocco notified the Board of County Commissioners in a letter last month that he would terminate the interlocal agreement, saying discussion at the board's Aug. 11 and Aug. 25 meetings made clear that a majority of commissioners no longer backed it. The board had approved the deal unanimously less than two years ago.

Commission Chair Jack Mariano led the pushback, telling the board he wanted to know exactly what was being surveilled and who had access to the data. He pointed to Flock Safety, the vendor originally used for the cameras, as a company that profits from the information it collects. The Sheriff's Office had already announced it was switching providers from Flock Safety to Axon before the agreement's end was announced.

Residents showed up at commission meetings to voice the same concern. A Hudson resident told commissioners there needed to be a clear justification for watching the movements of county residents. Another resident who has opposed the cameras said the outcome felt like a win, but that people should keep watching for other technology that might do the same job under a different name.

What the sheriff says this costs

Nocco has not hidden his frustration. In his letter, he wrote that the board's lack of support "will impact the solvability of crimes and our ability to locate missing and endangered children and adults, including the victims of human trafficking." He also said it will strain a department that already has limited resources.

The sheriff defended the program's safeguards as tighter than what state law requires. Florida law allows agencies to keep license plate data for up to two years; Pasco limited retention to 30 days. Searches were restricted to felonies and select misdemeanors and had to be tied to a specific call for service or case number, with deputies required to document why they pulled a record.

"I remain proud of our agency's policy which was carefully drafted to strike a balance between law enforcement needs and privacy concerns," Nocco wrote, adding that none of the abuses raised at recent meetings have actually happened in Pasco.

DeSantis weighs in from Tallahassee

The Pasco dispute has landed in a bigger statewide conversation. Gov. Ron DeSantis said publicly that he thinks license plate reader use has become "out of control," while stressing he still wants police to have tools to catch criminals. He drew a line between chasing down criminals and what he called surveilling "regular Floridians' movements and how that data is used."

DeSantis said the issue will likely need to go to the Florida Legislature, and that he has been looking at restrictions adopted in New Hampshire as a possible model for statewide rules.

That tension, between wanting the investigative tool and not trusting how it's used, is what has defined the debate in Pasco for months. A division director with the State Attorney's Office in New Port Richey argued the cameras had already helped investigators and prosecutors build cases. Sheriff's Office Inspector Arthur Madden told commissioners that time matters when deputies are trying to catch someone doing something dangerous.

None of that swayed the board majority. The county's agreement lapses today. What isn't settled is whether Tallahassee steps in with statewide rules that could reshape how any agency, in Pasco or elsewhere, uses this technology going forward. No legislative timeline has been set.

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