Sheriff Nocco to Remove Pasco's Road-Facing License Plate Cameras by Sept. 30

Pasco County's roughly 60 license plate reader cameras mounted along county rights-of-way will come down by September 30, 2026. Sheriff Chris Nocco notified the Board of County Commissioners this week that he is terminating the interlocal agreement that put the Flock camera network on county roads, after a majority of commissioners signaled during two recent meetings that they no longer back the program.

The agreement was approved unanimously by the board on December 10, 2024. Less than two years later, Nocco says the political support for it has collapsed. In his letter to commissioners, he pointed to discussion at the board's August 11 and August 25 meetings as the moment it became clear a majority had turned against the deal.

"I do wish to thank the Commissioners who have stood with law enforcement and public safety," Nocco wrote, before warning that the decision "will impact the solvability of crimes and our ability to locate missing and endangered children and adults, including the victims of human trafficking."

What actually comes down, and what stays

The cameras affected are the ones the Sheriff's Office placed in county-controlled rights-of-way under the 2024 deal, about 60 devices total. They are not the only plate readers in Pasco.

Nocco was blunt about that math in his letter, noting there are already more privately owned plate readers operating in Pasco than ones his office ever controlled. Removing the county's cameras, he wrote, "will not impact readers installed by private property owners on private property they own such as CDDs, HOAs, retail establishments, or other private entities or cameras placed in State-owned right-of-ways which are governed by the Florida Department of Transportation."

Sheriff defends the program's privacy limits

Nocco has spent the past several weeks defending how his office used the data. Florida law allows plate reader information to be kept for up to two years, but Pasco's policy limited retention to 30 days. Searches were restricted to felonies and select misdemeanors, and deputies had to log a call-for-service or case number to justify pulling records.

"These policies and procedures were incredibly robust and went far beyond what was required by state law and what surrounding jurisdictions have in place," Nocco wrote. He added that no privacy complaints of the kind raised at commission meetings have actually surfaced in Pasco, and called it "disappointing that a majority of the Board of County Commissioners does not trust the Sheriff's Office or our deputies."

A statewide fight, too

The Pasco decision landed the same week Governor Ron DeSantis said license plate readers have gotten "out of control" across Florida. DeSantis said he wants police to have tools to catch criminals but does not want the state to become a "surveillance state," and that he is reviewing privacy restrictions adopted in New Hampshire as a possible model for state lawmakers to consider.

DeSantis said the issue will likely need to go through the Florida Legislature, which could set statewide rules on how long plate data can be kept and who can search it, rules that would apply well beyond Pasco.

What happens after Sept. 30

The Sheriff's Office has not said whether it will pursue a different camera vendor or a narrower agreement with the county down the road. For now, the roughly 60 county-road cameras are scheduled to be deactivated and removed by the end of September 2026, leaving the private and state-controlled networks as the only plate readers left watching Pasco's roads.

Residents with questions about the change can follow updates through the Pasco Sheriff's Office. For more on this and other public safety developments across the county, visit our Pasco County Community Website, join the discussion in our Community Forum, and follow us on Facebook. You can also read more public safety stories or government and politics coverage from around the county.

Header photo: Ryan Watern / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)