Butler County Transparency Tracker

How many ALPR/Flock cameras exist in Butler County?

There is no single official count, but the tracker below documents cameras in West Chester (32 fixed + 2 portable), Fairfield city (44), Middletown (~30), Hamilton, Oxford, Trenton, Fairfield Township, and Liberty (10 being added). Counts come from local reporting and the EFF Atlas of Surveillance. A precise countywide total still needs records from each agency.

Which jurisdictions fund them?

Documented so far: Liberty Township (via BCSO payments), West Chester (~$189,200/2 yr), and Oxford ($219,000/5 yr), with Middletown using a state grant. Funding for the remaining jurisdictions is not yet documented. See the tracker below.

Which agency controls access?

For Liberty Township, the Butler County Sheriff's Office provides contracted policing and may control day-to-day operation, policies, and access. The Sheriff's Office also holds both a Flock contract and a 287(g) immigration-enforcement agreement with ICE (WOSU, 2026). The exact administrator of Liberty's cameras should be confirmed by records.

Which agencies can search the data?

Not disclosed for Liberty. Flock systems can be configured to share across a wide network of agencies. Whether Liberty-funded data is searchable outside the township is a specific question in our records requests. Records pending.

Are federal agencies able to request or access data?

Unknown for Liberty specifically — that is in our records requests. What is documented: WOSU reported that BCSO is one of four Ohio agencies holding both a Flock contract and a 287(g) ICE agreement, and that those offices had not responded to records requests. Records pending.

Are immigration-related searches allowed or prohibited?

Unknown for Liberty. Nearby Dayton found about 7,150 immigration-related searches of its Flock data by outside agencies; per Dayton's released logs, BCSO ran six immigration-related searches of Dayton's data since 2023 (Dayton Daily News, 2026). Whether Liberty-funded data is exposed to such searches is pending records.

What is the retention period?

Not disclosed. Retention is set by policy and vendor configuration and should be made public. Records pending.

Are audit logs reviewed independently?

Unknown. No independent audit process has been disclosed. Records pending.

Are false hits tracked?

Unknown. No public reporting on misreads, false hits, or resulting stops has been disclosed. Records pending.

Are public reports issued?

None known. We are not aware of a routine public Butler County ALPR transparency report. Records pending.

Are camera locations publicly disclosed?

Not officially. Public mapping projects such as DeFlock crowdsource suspected locations, but official disclosure by local agencies is unknown. Records pending.