A leaked memorandum from the City of Berkeley\u2019s Attorney\u2019s Office about Flock Safety warned that Flock technology might be incapable of complying with city, state and federal unauthorized data sharing restrictions.<\/p>\n
Consequently, it warned Berkeley could be liable for up to tens of millions of dollars from potential lawsuits. They warned of possible legal claims that Flock violated citizens\u2019 Fourth Amendment privacy rights, California sanctuary law, state law regulating license plate data sharing and the California Public Records Act.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The City Attorney\u2019s Office sent the memo to the City Council, the chief of police, the city manager, the director of Police Accountability and the Police Accountability Board on April 24.<\/p>\n
City officials did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n
This Thursday, the City Council will vote<\/a> on renewing<\/a> Berkeley\u2019s contract with Flock Safety for Automated License Plate Readers and adding first-responder drones, surveillance cameras and Flock Nova investigative software to the contract.<\/p>\n The memorandum notes that Oakland\u2019s December 2025 Flock contract includes additional Oakland-specific protections against data sharing or access by out-of-state actors, whereas Berkeley\u2019s proposed contract follows Flock\u2019s standard terms and conditions.<\/p>\n Councilmembers Shoshana O\u2019Keefe, Mark Humbert, Rashi Kesarwani and Terry Taplin authored an op-ed released in The Berkeley Scanner today defending their support for the renewed and expanded Flock contract, citing the benefits of Flock surveillance technology in making arrests. The four council members\u2019 proposed supplemental prohibits data sharing without written permission from the City Council.<\/p>\n The city\u2019s attorneys cited cases in Mountain View, Ventura County and Eugene, Oregon, of Flock\u2019s alleged illegal reactivation of National Lookup granting out-of-state data access. According to confidential information shared by the Mountain View City Attorney\u2019s Office in the memo, Mountain View experienced \u201cissues with corrupt datasets and faulty programming, which cannot be fixed by any contract language even if Flock\u2019s legal team makes every effort to ensure compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n The memo then analyzes potential lawsuits the city could face if Flock shares residents\u2019 data without city approval. Citing a previously threatened lawsuit by Secure Justice, the City Attorney\u2019s Office wrote that the city could be liable for a $2,500 penalty \u201cper camera and per image disclosed,\u201d which could cumulatively cost $30 million to $60 million.<\/p>\n The City Attorney\u2019s Office proposed additional amendments to the Flock contract to comply with Berkeley\u2019s sanctuary city protections. Flock sent the city amendments overriding the city attorneys\u2019 changes and enabling Flock to share data with third parties without the city\u2019s consent. According to the memo, city attorneys are unsure if Flock intentionally or accidentally undercut Berkeley\u2019s sanctuary city protections, but declare \u201ceither possibility is troubling.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere is also a risk the City could be sued under the Fourth Amendment simply for using Flock\u2019s products, even if no data is shared,\u201d the City Attorney\u2019s Office stated in the memo.<\/p>\n According to the memo, the city cannot prosecute Flock in court for violations of state or federal law or force Flock to comply with its contractual obligations, but can likely only pursue monetary damages for unauthorized data sharing.<\/p>\n Mayor Adena Ishii and Councilmember Cecilia Lunaparra co-authored a supplemental rejecting any contract with Flock, co-sponsored by Councilmember Igor Tregub.<\/p>\n Berkeley Copwatch planned a rally before the City Council special meeting Thursday, at which Tregub will be speaking.<\/p>\n Juliette Damian contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A leaked memorandum from the City of Berkeley\u2019s Attorney\u2019s Office about Flock Safety warned that Flock technology might…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[7983,35939,28554,764,127596,13775,47908,1610,27198,127595,67869,56847,24977,35940,108097,28555,14328,12500,194,143,145,144,545,7985,12499,127597,7987,12498,1226],"class_list":["post-302107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-adena-ishii","tag-alpr","tag-automated-license-plate-readers","tag-berkeley","tag-berkeley-scanner","tag-cecilia-lunaparra","tag-chief-of-police","tag-city-council","tag-city-manager","tag-city-of-berkeleys-attorneys-office","tag-copwatch","tag-director-of-police-accountability","tag-eugene","tag-flock","tag-flock-nova","tag-flock-safety","tag-igor-tregub","tag-mark-humbert","tag-mountain-view","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-oregon","tag-police-accountability-board","tag-rashi-kesarwani","tag-secure-justice","tag-shoshana-okeefe","tag-terry-taplin","tag-ventura-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}