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Costa Mesa police outline how Flock ALPRs have aided investigations and describe oversight controls
Summary
Police presented technical and operational details of the department's Flock Safety ALPR program, highlighted case examples where ALPR data assisted investigations, and described audits, administrator controls, and the department's transparency portal under SB 34.
Police leadership presented a multi-part briefing to the council on how the department uses Flock Safety's automated license-plate readers and the governance safeguards in place.
Captain Carlos Diaz described program history (initial deployment in April 2022, expansion to 46 cameras by February 2024 funded in part by an organized retail theft grant) and the department's goals of improved situational awareness and support for investigations. Lieutenant Barnes described the department's transparency portal (which the presentation and the transcript noted is publicly available and contains camera locations and policy language) and said the department requires a documented law-enforcement purpose for searches and uses multifactor authentication and audit tools. "Our acceptable use policy is governed by SB 34," Barnes said; "This data is for law enforcement purposes only."
Lieutenant Jake Jacoby provided three investigative vignettes — a homicide, a missing adult with dementia and an alleged sexual assault/kidnapping case — where departmental staff said images or matches in the broader ALPR network produced leads that materially progressed investigations, in some cases within hours. The presenters acknowledged a past incident of inappropriate access by a former Costa Mesa officer, noted the employee pled guilty, and described subsequent audit and oversight improvements including weekly administrator audits and Flock's audit-assistance tools.
