Explainer · A Hot Topic, Handled Cold
License plate cameras in Bedford County
Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) are being debated across Tennessee right now. Open Bedford takes no position on them. This page lays out what the public record shows locally, what state law says, and what isn't publicly documented yet — with sources for every claim.
What the Record Shows
- The Shelbyville Police Department operates 17 Flock Safety automated license plate readers, as of September 2025. That count comes from public records compiled by the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Atlas of Surveillance project.
- The documented cameras are city cameras, not county cameras. The system belongs to the City of Shelbyville; its oversight body is the Shelbyville City Council.
- The Bedford County Sheriff's Office participates in Flock's data-sharing network: it appears — alongside Shelbyville PD — on the public sharing list of the Shelby County (Memphis area) Sheriff's transparency portal, among hundreds of agencies granted access to that county's camera data. Appearing on a sharing list documents network access; it does not by itself document that the Sheriff's Office operates cameras of its own. No record of county-operated cameras has been located.
- ALPR cameras photograph the license plate of every passing vehicle, with a timestamp and location, and store the results in a searchable database. Flock's product does not use facial recognition.
- Shelbyville's cameras appear on a shared-devices list released by a North Carolina police department in response to a public records request — documentary evidence that plate data from local cameras is available to other agencies through Flock's national sharing network.
How Many, and Where?
17 cameras — documented via public records (Atlas of Surveillance, as of September 2025), all operated by the Shelbyville Police Department.
Exact locations are not officially published. Neither the city nor Flock releases a camera map. The map below shows the only location data that exists — and it is community-reported, not official.
Where this map comes from: All nodes tagged as ALPR cameras within a bounding box approximating Bedford County (35.30–35.66 N, -86.665 to -86.245 W), retrieved from DeFlock's public region data (built from OpenStreetMap). The box is rectangular; a few points near the edges may lie in neighboring counties. All 31 points carried the manufacturer tag 'Flock Safety'. Points are contributed by volunteers to OpenStreetMap, largely through the DeFlock mapping project, and are not verified by Open Bedford or any government body. The community count (31) exceeds the 17 cameras documented for Shelbyville PD — community maps may include cameras operated by others, duplicates, or errors. Treat each point as a lead, not a fact. An official location list is an open records question below.
Shelbyville PD does not publish a Flock transparency portal. Some Tennessee agencies do — the Shelby County Sheriff's portal, for example, publicly lists its camera count, 30-day retention, prohibited uses, and every agency it shares with. No equivalent page exists for Shelbyville (checked August 1, 2026). Whether to publish one is a policy choice that belongs to the city.
See a camera that isn't on this map?
Two ways to report it — and please report only cameras you have personally seen, from public property:
- Add it to the community map at deflock.me. Reports are written into OpenStreetMap, the public database this map is built from; this page picks up new reports when its data snapshot is refreshed.
- Tell Open Bedford — anonymously — through the "Uncover Something" box on the homepage. We'll work the records side: which agency (or business) operates it, and under what authority.
Worth knowing: police and privately owned Flock cameras are physically identical. A camera on a pole is not, by itself, evidence of who operates it — that answer lives in contracts and minutes.
What Tennessee Law Says
Tennessee has regulated ALPRs since 2014. Under Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-10-302, plate data captured by a government ALPR system:
- May not be stored for more than 90 days, unless it is part of an ongoing investigation;
- Must be destroyed at the conclusion of an investigation that doesn't result in charges;
- Is classified as confidential — meaning citizens cannot obtain the captured data itself through a public records request.
The General Assembly has been debating additional ALPR legislation; statewide news coverage of that debate is linked below. If the law changes, this page will change with it.
What Isn't Publicly Documented Yet
Each open question below is answerable by a specific public document. As those documents are obtained, this page fills in.
| Open question | The document that would answer it |
|---|---|
| What does the city pay for the system? | City of Shelbyville budget / Flock contract |
| When was it approved, and by what vote? | Shelbyville City Council minutes |
| What are the usage rules — who can search, and why? | Shelbyville PD ALPR policy / general order |
| Where exactly are the cameras? | Camera location list from the city (records request) |
| Which outside agencies can search local data? | Flock sharing settings / transparency portal |
| Does the Sheriff's Office operate cameras of its own — and what does its network access cost? | County budget line items; commission minutes (its network access is documented; own cameras are not) |
Note: state law makes the captured plate data confidential — but contracts, costs, policies, and council votes are ordinary public records.
How to Participate
Because this is a city system, the venue is Shelbyville City Council — not the county commission. Council agendas and meeting times are posted on the city's website. If a county ALPR proposal ever appears on a commission agenda, it will show up in Open Bedford's meeting coverage automatically.