St. Johns County Sheriff's Office
- Status
- Removing or limiting cameras
- Vendors
- Flock Safety, Motorola Solutions
- Cameras
- 182
About 182 Flock cameras, roughly half to be removed from state rights-of-way (Sept.-Oct. 2026). About 100 additional readers are owned by homeowners associations, not the Sheriff's Office. Jacksonville Today (Sept. 3, 2026) gave "roughly 180." Motorola (Vigilant) was the original vendor from 2017; the agency later switched to Flock. - Contract
- Flock Safety: $908,000 FY2026 total for license-plate reader technology; $481,000 from the Sheriff's Office budget, remainder grant-funded (Action News Jax, Sept. 2, 2026; Jacksonville Today, Sept. 3, 2026)
- Contract
- Flock Safety: $500,000 FY2027 budget funding requested by the sheriff for the Flock camera system (Action News Jax, Sept. 4, 2026; Jacksonville Today (News4JAX staff), Sept. 16, 2026)
- Data sharing
- Sheriff's Office officials said in September 2026 that data sharing with outside agencies had ended ("We have made changes that we no longer share data.").
- 2017 The Sheriff's Office began using license-plate readers, with Vigilant (later acquired by Motorola); it later switched to Flock Safety. (Jacksonville Today (News4JAX staff), Sept. 16, 2026)
- Oct. 2023 Action News Jax reported the Sheriff's Office operated about 20 cameras countywide. (Action News Jax, Oct. 23, 2023)
- Sept. 2, 2026 Sheriff Rob Hardwick texted commissioners: "We are going to comply with the recent FDOT directive." The text said FY2026 LPR spending was $908,000, with $481,000 from the Sheriff's Office budget and the remainder from grants. (Action News Jax, Sept. 2, 2026; Jacksonville Today, Sept. 3, 2026)
- Sept. 15, 2026 At the final budget hearing, Commissioner Christian Whitehurst called for an immediate moratorium; the county attorney said a moratorium may not be the right tool because the sheriff is a constitutional officer. The board reached consensus to take two weeks to review legal options; no formal vote reported. Officials said data retention was cut to 30 days and data sharing with outside agencies had ended. Hardwick said removed cameras would not be relocated. (Jacksonville Today (News4JAX staff), Sept. 16, 2026)
- Oct. 6, 2026 Commissioners agreed to place use of Flock cameras on county rights-of-way on the Oct. 20, 2026 agenda. No vote tally reported. (News4JAX (WJXT), Oct. 7, 2026)
Conflicts and open questions
- Budget sources differ in wording: Action News Jax reports $908,000 as total FY2026 spending with $481,000 from the sheriff's budget; Jacksonville Today reports $908,000 budgeted and $481,000 spent, grants covering the rest. Whether the $500,000 FY2027 request was approved was not found. Oct. 20, 2026 commission discussion is pending.
Reported by news outlets; agency records not yet obtained.