Police departments thousands of miles away are searching license plate cameras at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte far more often than the university’s own officers, according to newly obtained records that have raised concerns about surveillance and who can access information collected on campus.
An investigation by WBTV News reporter David Hodges found that the Houston Police Department conducted more than 183,000 searches that included UNC Charlotte’s camera network between March and May 2026, while campus police searched the same network only 229 times during that period.
The difference surprised students who were asked to guess which law enforcement agencies used the cameras most frequently, particularly after learning that departments in Texas, Florida, and Michigan ranked ahead of their local police…