NORTH CAROLINAAPX-M001
OVERWATCH
Public Accountability Network · Apex, NC

Automated license plate recognition, pointed the other way. Every camera, every hotlist, every travel history the town approved for its residents. Now aimed at the officials who approved it.

All detection data is fabricated. A civic demonstration by DeFlock Apex. deflockapex.org
Demonstration · Parody · All plate reads and locations are fabricated · Built by DeFlock Apex
Demonstration · Fabricated Data

OVERWATCH

Public Accountability Network
0 reads since you arrived
Live
◉ Ask OVERWATCH · natural language query press /
Cameras Online
18
of 18 deployed
Reads Today
3,412
across the network
Tracked Subjects
12
officials · staff · APD
Hotlist Hits (24h)
27
subjects seen
Retention
30 days
rolling, all reads

Live Detection Map · Apex, NC

Streaming
Fixed camera
Hotlist hit
Route replay

Live Read Feed

auto-updating
Point the lens back

Every capability on this screen already exists in the license plate reader network operating in Apex today. The live feed, the hotlist alerts, the 30 day retention, the natural language search over where a car has been. This demonstration aims all of it at the people who approved the program. Nothing here was invented except who is being watched.

You just watched a surveillance system profile people in seconds. The real one is running in Apex right now.

No public vote approved it. No ordinance governs it. The protections are settings a chief or a vendor can change, not limits a community agreed to. The contract ends January 31, 2027 and there is no automatic renewal, so this is entirely Council's decision.

Next Council meeting: Tuesday, August 25. Arrive 5:30 PM, meeting starts 6:00. Apex Town Hall, 73 Hunter Street. The public comment sign-up sheet is out before the meeting starts. Three minutes each, and you do not have to be an expert. “I did not vote for this and I want it gone” is a complete comment.

Roster · Approved Officials and APD

12 subjects
How a hotlist works

A hotlist is a set of plates the system flags on sight. Anyone can be added to one, and lists are shared across other agencies, often without the subject knowing. In the real network the list is residents. Here it is the officials who voted the cameras in, the staff who run them, and the department that searches them.

Pattern of Life · Behavioral Insights

Movement Heatmap · 7 days × 24 hours

Fewer sightingsMore sightings
▲ Predicted Next Location

Frequent Locations

⚠ Pattern Anomaly Detected

Insights are the quiet part

Plate reads become a pattern of life once the system connects them. Where someone sleeps, when they leave, who they visit, what changed this week, where they will be next. An algorithm calling a change in your routine an anomaly is not safety. It is profiling. The network in Apex can build this profile on any resident right now.

Association Network · Co-Location Analysis

who travels with whom

Relationship Graph

edge weight = shared sightings

Strongest Associations

Guilt by pattern

Once every plate is logged, the system infers relationships no one reported. Two cars at the same lot at the same time becomes an association. A meeting becomes a data point. This is how a camera network turns ordinary movement into a map of who knows whom, with no crime and no warrant anywhere in the process.

Federal searches of Apex cameras
9,700
Jan 2 to Apr 1, 2026 · APD's Network Audit
Outside orgs querying Apex
3,587
distinct, Jan to Mar · ~3,000/mo since
Apex searches, APD's own log
2,649
Jun 1 to Aug 17, 2026 · Organization Audit
Cameras reachable in one search
100,075
max 6,896 networks · median 3,136
This tab is not a parody

Everything on every other tab is fabricated. Every number on this tab comes from records the Town of Apex produced in response to a public records request in August 2026. The Network Audit logs searches by outside organisations whose scope reached Apex cameras. The Organization Audit logs searches run by Apex operators. Nine monthly files, roughly 6.6 million rows.

The receipts, in the department's own words

primary source

Agencies Sharing This Network's Data

sample · not exhaustive
Simulated data · parody · deflockapex.org