SF to Hold Hearing on Flock Surveillance Tech
San Francisco is holding a public hearing on Monday regarding its use of Flock's automated license plate reader technology. The debate centers on the surveillance system's effectiveness versus its potential impact on immigration and privacy, with other Bay Area cities also reconsidering their contracts.
The controversy is rooted in California Senate Bill 34, which prohibits law enforcement agencies from sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with out-of-state or federal entities. A recent class-action lawsuit alleges that in San Francisco, Flock enabled out-of-state agencies to illegally access the police department's database more than 1.6 million times over a seven-month period. Concerns intensified after audits in other cities revealed how data was accessed. In Mountain View, police discovered that several federal agencies accessed their Flock data for months via a "nationwide" search setting that was enabled without the department's permission or knowledge. This has been described as a "back door" that circumvents local data-sharing restrictions. Several Bay Area cities have already terminated their contracts with Flock over these data-sharing concerns. Mountain View, Santa Cruz, and Los Altos Hills all voted to end their agreements after reports that data was being accessed by agencies outside California, including for immigration enforcement purposes. Flock Safety maintains that it does not have a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and that its customers own and control their own data. The company states that local agencies must expressly and deliberately allow access and that Flock has disabled settings for California agencies to make compliance with state law easier. San Francisco's rollout involves 400 cameras funded by a $17.3 million state grant aimed at combating organized retail theft. The system allows SFPD to search for vehicles by characteristics like body type and color, not just the license plate, which is intended to generate leads when a plate isn't visible. The San Francisco Police Department credits the first 100 cameras installed with immediate results, leading to arrests in cases of organized retail theft, carjacking, robbery, and sexual assault. Officials point to these results as proof the technology is an effective tool for improving public safety amid reduced crime rates.
