“We have a team of highly educated legal experts,” UNCA Chief of Police Dodd Darran said. The decision to install the university’s new A.I. assisted surveillance system was voted on by the 13 person board of trustees.
The UNCA chief of police says he has the authority to make changes to university security systems unilaterally, but deferred to the trustees in the final decision making while likening security systems to layers of an onion.
“We do not know how Flock operates as a company,” Communications and Marketing director Brian Hart said in regards to the business practices of Flock and methods of installation.
Technicalities of how the Flock systems were not fully explained to the student body government, as per SGA president Obianko Osaro. Particularly, the aspects of the license plate reading system and data aggregation operating with A.I systems. He was informed of them in an October 2025 meeting with UNCA police.
“We wouldn’t share our network with any third party network,” the chief of police said in a Jan. 29 interview.
There is a service provided by Flock, called the Flock Business Network. As per a June 23., 2025 statement, the FBN gives private sector businesses access to Flock networks and the data they collect.
“Now, we’re extending that same network effect to the private sector. The Flock Business Network empowers companies to protect their people and assets by working together,” Flock CEO Garrett Langley said.
While the university says they may not be actively sharing its system with third party companies, its data and information collected goes to Flocks cloud based network as opposed to the university’s closed network on its prior system, according to the ACLU.
“It feels like a violation of our privacy,” Alijah Acres, a student of UNCA, said in regards to the system’s installation.
The university says they are unaware of how a 287.G agreement — a partnership between ICE and a police department — would affect the access of footage collected by the camera system.
Dodd says he has no intention of sharing footage from our Flock network. This is complicated by the nature of Flock systems being cloud based rather than on a closed network belonging to the university. The data observed by the camera system is aggregated and searchable across its network, including for private companies.
“It’s concerning that it’s not more publicized,” said UNCA student Izzie Raustol in regards to the lack of communication for the installation of the Flock system.
