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Resident raises Flock ALPR privacy concerns; city staff says sharing options are off and contract is being wound down
Summary
A resident told Campbell council she found hundreds of Flock ALPR searches with no justification and urged the city to shut down Flock cameras; staff replied that sharing options are turned off, the city is not sharing data outside California or with federal agencies, and that staff is transitioning off the Flock network to an in‑house system.
At the start of the Feb. 3 meeting, resident Laura Reese urged the City Council to shut down Flock automated license‑plate reader (ALPR) cameras, move cloud‑stored data to a locally hosted database, purge data older than 30 days, and create a technology oversight committee after she said her audit search showed roughly half of 13,000 searches had no justification.
Reese referenced national reports that federal agencies have accessed Flock data in other jurisdictions and described instances where cameras were used to search large datasets. She told the council that the evidence raised Fourth Amendment concerns and asked Campbell to take immediate action.
A staff member responded that Campbell has been a long‑time Flock customer and that staff conducted several audits which found the city's external sharing options were turned off. "We are not sharing outside the state of California, which is prohibited by law. We are not sharing with any federal agencies," the staff member said and noted California law (California Senate Bill 54) restricts certain sharing and immigration enforcement uses.
Staff added that the city has already eliminated one contract with Flock and is moving toward an in‑house public safety camera and ALPR database to retain the benefits of ALPR data for investigations while maintaining local control and oversight.
Council members thanked the public speaker and staff for the update; no formal action or vote was taken on the public comment during the meeting.
