Flock camera debate grips San Francisco ahead of deadline

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(The Center Square) - San Francisco’s contract with the automated license plate reader company Flock Safety is set to end in February as public scrutiny of the technology has caused several Bay Area cities to cancel contracts.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie recently announced new guardrails for the artificial intelligence-based technology but has maintained praise for the multi-million dollar system, along with other political leaders in the city, for its crime-fighting capabilities. Local officials have reported a significant decrease in crime.

But opponents expressed privacy concerns ahead of the contract renewal deadline, citing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement access and a string of national and local abuses of the technology by police officers.

Flock Safety did not respond to an interview request from The Center Square for this story.

“We have hundreds of thousands of cameras now across the country, and law enforcement is seemingly able to search them with very little restraint,” said Saira Hussain, senior attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“This mass surveillance technology has crept up on us in some ways, [but] the public outcry is here now, and it’s very loud – and very hard for lawmakers and police to ignore," Hussain told The Center Square.

Automated license plate readers are cameras mounted to streetlights, poles or overpasses. They automatically take photos of license plates that pass their view. Along with the location, date, time and other information about the vehicle, the pictures are saved to a vast online database that can track drivers and their vehicles.

The technology burst into the national conversation in recent months. An October poll by Noble Predictive Insights for The Center Square found 25% of registered voters thought ALPRs were too risky to use, and 39% said the technology should only be used in serious crimes or emergencies. NPI said 29% supported the technology’s more general use.

In June, Flock reported a network of over 120,000 cameras across 49 states. DeFlock, a crowdsourced database opposed to the technology, reported over 144,000 ALPRs across the country. 

Fears of mass surveillance have driven national concern about the tech, with ALPRs able to be shared between users, across states and police departments.

“Many people’s movements are being tracked day in and day out as they are living and working, as they are moving from their house to their school to a place of worship, and where they may be seeking sensitive services,” said Hussain of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “ICE is engaging in increased immigration enforcement activity, including here in San Francisco. The ways in which these cameras may be tracking people's sensitive movements – like if they're visiting an immigration clinic, or seeking medical care – we believe that this technology cannot be reformed.”

Around the Bay Area, ALPR contracts with police departments have been canceled or restricted in recent months. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for governor, called for a stricter contract in September, following a police officer’s use of the cameras to track a woman’s movements after she accused their cousin of domestic violence. 

“Today, I am proud to announce that San Francisco is putting tighter limits on how license plate reader data can be accessed and used,” San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie told reporters in late September.

“Strengthening the public trust that has been critical to our progress on public safety," said the Democrat.

Lurie announced a series of changes to ALPR use by the SFPD. This included a shortened window for access to the cameras’ data from 12 months to 30 days and for more information to be filled out by officers conducting searches of the database. He also called for state legislation to penalize officers who misuse ALPR data.

While announcing the restrictions, Lurie maintained praise of the technology’s role in reducing San Francisco’s crime rates.

“Last year, crime dropped 30%, and it’s down another 20% this year,” said Lurie. “Car break-ins are at 22-year lows, and homicides have reached their lowest point since 1954. Good police work, along with technology, have helped us get there.”

The decrease is good news for organizations such as Stop Crime SF.

“The drop in crime in San Francisco is shocking and amazing, and we are really happy about it,” Frank Noto, co-founder of the policy organization, told The Center Square.

Crime across the board has come down dramatically during the last two years in San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Police Department. Violent crimes have decreased since the pandemic, with homicides down 20% and gun violence 24% from 2024 to 2025. Motor vehicle thefts dropped 24% over the same period.

Hussain noted that the national crime rate also decreased. According to FBI data, U.S. crime decreased over the same period, with violent crimes down 9.3% from 2024 to 2025 and motor vehicle theft down 22.7%.

Noto said he supported the use of Flock cameras with the new regulations, along with other policing changes in the city over the past two years, such as a new district attorney and drone usage by the SFPD. (The District Attorney's Office and the SFPD are part of the single government that serves the city and county of San Francisco.)

“We think that we should go forward and use this to reduce crime,” Noto said. “We don't want to go back to the bad old days.”

But Hussain said the contributions of ALPRs on the decreased crime rates had been overstated, and she argued the dangers of the technology impacted everybody.

“It doesn't actually matter if you're doing anything wrong or not,” said Hussain. “The fact that this is a mass surveillance technology means that it's collecting information about everybody who's moving in public.”

SFPD’s contract is set to end Feb. 2027, with 483 cameras across the city, according to Flock. DeFlock Bay Area, an anti-ALPR organization, reported that the city’s contract, which began in 2024, cost $350,000 in installation costs and $1.2 million in annual maintenance.