Residents urge Ridgecrest to suspend Flock camera contract; chief and council weigh privacy against safety
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Summary
Residents and a community group urged Ridgecrest officials to suspend the city’s contract with Flock Safety, saying the company’s systems capture tens of thousands of vehicle images and may use overseas contractors to annotate data; the police chief defended Flock as unbreached and credited it with aiding a recent arrest.
Michael Citra, speaking for a local group called Deflock Ridgecrest, told the Ridgecrest City Council that the city’s 24 Flock Safety cameras captured about 62,800 images in the past 30 days and raised privacy and security concerns about how those images are annotated. “These cameras record every vehicle that passes by them,” Citra said, adding that reporting from 404 Media and Wired indicated some image annotations were done by overseas contractors. He urged the council to place “Deflock Ridgecrest” on the agenda and to consider suspending the city’s contract with Flock.
Brenda, a Ridgecrest resident who delivered a petition, said 115 people from Ridgecrest had signed asking the council to suspend the contract and to hold a public discussion of the company’s practices. “I wasn’t opposed to cameras before,” she said, but added the new reporting prompted a reassessment of whether the vendor is protecting residents’ security and liberties.
Police Chief (name not stated in the record) responded to the public commenters and defended the department’s use of Flock. “Flock Safety has never been breached,” he said, and described Flock as a tool that identifies license plates so officers can focus on plates tied to criminal activity. The chief recounted a recent burglary investigation in which Flock led officers to a vehicle and resulted in an arrest, saying: “Without Flock, we are less effective at protecting the community.” He acknowledged broader cybersecurity incidents in other organizations but said he had seen no evidence Ridgecrest’s deployment was compromised.
Council members said they appreciated both concerns about civil liberties and the public-safety benefits the chief described. One councilmember noted a recent congressional report on automated license-plate readers and asked staff to re-examine the city’s policy to ensure a proper balance between safety and privacy. Several members suggested a public meeting or town hall to let residents ask questions and see the city’s Flock policy.
The council did not take emergency action to suspend the contract at the meeting. Instead, the chief invited residents with specific evidence or examples to bring those to the police department for review, and councilmembers said they would continue policy-level review of the system and follow relevant court decisions, including ongoing litigation in other jurisdictions.
