SANTA CRUZ, Calif., Aug. 10 (Santa Cruz News Online) — The Santa Cruz City Council voted 6-1 on Jan. 13 to terminate the city’s contract with Flock Safety, ending use of the company’s automated license plate reader system over concerns about privacy, data sharing and control of police information.
Councilmember Sonja Brunner cast the only dissenting vote. The council’s action allowed the city to end the agreement with 30 days’ notice. Based on the contract timeline described by city officials, Feb. 12 was the earliest possible termination date.
The decision makes Santa Cruz the first California city identified in the supplied coverage to terminate its Flock contract. It does not end the use of license plate readers throughout Santa Cruz County. Flock systems remain in use in other local jurisdictions, including Capitola and Watsonville.
What are Flock cameras?
Automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, use cameras and software to record license plates and vehicle information. Police agencies can use the data to help locate vehicles connected to an investigation or alert.
Unlike a traditional traffic camera, an ALPR system can make the information searchable. That raises questions about how long records are kept, who can access them and whether information gathered for a local police purpose can be shared with agencies elsewhere.
Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company, operates a national search tool that can allow participating law enforcement agencies to search data collected in other communities. Santa Cruz Police Chief Bernie Escalante told officials that Santa Cruz data had been accessible to out-of-state law enforcement agencies through that tool.
Escalante described the access as inadvertent and said it conflicted with California law. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported that Flock disabled the California setting for national sharing on Feb. 11, 2025, and that Santa Cruz opted out of a statewide portal in November.
Why did the council reject the system?
Council members cited concerns about privacy, cybersecurity, vendor accountability and possible misuse of ALPR data. Mayor Fred Keeley said the threat to civil liberties was greater than the benefit the city could receive from what he called a flawed product.
Councilmember Susie O’Hara said the concern was not only whether Santa Cruz police officers would use the system properly. She said the city could not guarantee that its data would not be used in ways that conflict with local values or create fear in the community.
The debate also focused on the difference between local control and a private company’s broader data-sharing network. Even if Santa Cruz officers followed city policies, council members questioned whether the city could control searches by outside agencies or prevent other uses of the information.
A group called Get the Flock Out said state agencies accessed Santa Cruz camera data about 4,000 times between June and October 2025 on behalf of federal law enforcement, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That figure comes from the group’s research and has not been independently confirmed by an official record identified in the available material. The information supplied does not establish whether ICE directly searched Santa Cruz data, which agencies conducted the searches or whether anyone was identified or investigated as a result.
Flock has said that its customers control access to their data and that the company does not share the information with the federal government.
What happens to the cameras?
The city discontinued use of the Flock system after the vote. City communications manager Erika Smart said the Police Department was coordinating with Flock to remove the city’s eight cameras, with removal expected within several weeks.
The available information does not establish the date when all eight cameras were physically removed. It also does not show that the council permanently rejected all ALPR technology.
Instead, the council directed city staff to examine alternative systems or safeguards that could allow future use with stronger local controls and privacy protections. Those safeguards could address issues such as data access, sharing, retention and vendor oversight, although the council’s action did not specify a replacement system.
For Santa Cruz, the vote shifts the central question from whether police can use plate-reading technology to whether the city can keep control of information collected in its streets. The council’s action ends the current Flock agreement while leaving open the possibility of a different system under tighter rules.
