During a recent interview at SF’s Pier 27, local billionaire Chris Larsen revealed that his 19-year-old son keeps pressuring him to stop funding SFPD\u2019s Flock surveillance technology amid growing backlash.<\/p>\n
Larsen said he has defended the surveillance technology to his son by pointing to its role in reducing crime, but the 19-year-old remains unconvinced. As Business Insider reports<\/a>, when Larsen told him that surveillance had helped bring crime down in San Francisco, his son responded that he would rather have the crime than the surveillance.<\/p>\n Larsen made the comments on a recent episode of the podcast, On with Kara Swisher<\/a>, filmed at San Francisco\u2019s Pier 27, where he discussed the growing backlash against Flock and other surveillance tools. He acknowledged that there is now significant opposition to the technology, which he attributed in part to what he called \u201cbad press.\u201d<\/p>\n Larsen donated $9.4 million to SFPD in 2025 to expand its Real-Time Investigation Center<\/a>, consisting of automated license-plate readers, drones, surveillance cameras, and other tools, which also helped fund the center\u2019s move from the Hall of Justice to a larger facility downtown, along with additional equipment and drone launch sites.<\/p>\n He told Swisher that support for surveillance technology was considerably stronger one or two years ago, but that opposition has since grown alongside the national \u201cDeFlock\u201d movement. Last month, protestors organized a demonstration outside Larsen’s home<\/a>. <\/p>\n According to transcripts<\/a> from the podcast, Larsen suggested restrictions that could be implemented in San Francisco, including reducing the amount of time the police department keeps the footage. SF currently retains Flock data for a year, far longer than the roughly 30-day period that had previously been Flock\u2019s standard \u2014 before Flock reduced it to seven days amid mounting criticism.\u00a0<\/p>\n He also pointed to New Hampshire, where state law requires license-plate data to be purged within three minutes unless it is connected to a criminal investigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Several jurisdictions have moved to restrict the technology, per Business Insider. Florida ordered Flock license-plate readers removed from state highways last month, while Denver and Tempe, Arizona, have deactivated their cameras.<\/p>\n The conversation also touched on Larsen\u2019s push for clearer cryptocurrency regulations. He told Swisher that Congress\u2019s Digital Asset Market Clarity Act<\/a> would help establish whether cryptocurrencies are treated as securities or commodities, which he considers the biggest unresolved issue facing the industry. <\/p>\n Pointing to his four-year legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Larsen argued that determining whether cryptocurrencies fall under SEC or Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversight would help create clearer rules and give companies and consumers more certainty. <\/p>\n The House passed the bill in 2025, and a revised version advanced through the Senate Banking Committee in May 2026.\u00a0The Senate is expected to take a procedural vote on September 15<\/a>, with some Democrats and Republicans warning its lack of sufficient safeguards could destabilize the banking system.<\/p>\n