Altwer supports the council’s decision and emphasizes she does not want data from the cameras shared with federal immigration agencies. Altwer points to her experience as a former San Mateo police officer, adding, “I’m the person who understands how these processes work and knows how to ask the right questions to make sure that we’re protecting community members.”
Ator calls the council’s move a “step in the right direction” but would push for a full audit of the city’s contract with Flock Safety, the provider of the automated license plate cameras, before supporting a renewal. Citing his prior experience with vendor contracts, he says that because of data privacy concerns “the original Flock contract would not have passed my review, absolutely not.”
Chester describes the council’s changes as “well thought out,” but says going forward, the council needs to take a hard look at whether or not to renew the city’s contract with Flock. “I hope that there are other companies that are going to prove themselves to be even more protective of our information,” he says.
Hennessy supports the license plate reader program. “If we have a child abducted or we have a problem — the crimes that are [solved] are way more positive to me than somebody worrying about their privacy,” he says. He does support having some rules about sharing the information with “an outside source.”
Hughes agrees with the council’s vote and says the new rules will help the city remain “open and transparent to residents.” He points to the challenge of recruiting police officers and adds that “the job that these automated license plate readers do for our community, I think, far outweighs all of the things that could go wrong.”