News of that improper access prompted city leaders to call for the implementation<\/a> of stronger prohibitions on officers accessing databases and increased random audits of searches.<\/p>\n \u201cWith every single juncture, community members must be centered to understand truly the harms of mass surveillance,\u201d said Kimberly Woo, a community organizer with immigrant-rights organization SIREN, one of the protest\u2019s organizers. \u201cIt does not make sense to make policies if we do not know all the flaws and issues of the ALPR system.\u201d<\/p>\n At Wednesday afternoon\u2019s Rules and Open Government Committee meeting, five San Jose councilmembers voted unanimously to instruct the city manager\u2019s office to develop a draft ordinance outlining unauthorized uses of Flock data and potential civil and criminal penalties for violations.<\/p>\n Potential safeguards to explore include prohibiting access to the Flock database on personal devices, implementing multi-factor authentication and establishing an audit system overseen by the Independent Police Auditor and other city departments. The city also was urged to advocate for state legislation implementing criminal penalties for unauthorized access.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re all very concerned about the breach. I can\u2019t express enough how concerned we are about the breach, so I look forward to having this formal discussion with council and how we\u2019re going to move forward, and with the police chief present,\u201d said Vice Mayor Pam Foley at the meeting.<\/p>\n The city staff\u2019s analysis should take about three weeks to return to the rules committee. It will then be placed on a regular City Council agenda for discussion.<\/p>\n There are about 500 Flock cameras installed throughout San Jose and 120,000 nationwide<\/a>. Public safety officials across the Bay Area have praised their crime-fighting benefits, including SJPD, which regularly attributes quick arrests of suspects to the system.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the City Council implemented some guardrails on the devices<\/a>, including barring the cameras from recording license plates of those going to houses of worship and reproductive health clinics and from storing data for more than 30 days.<\/p>\n But critics of the system say the cameras have created an unprecedented state of surveillance that presents particular concerns for immigrant populations.<\/p>\n In November 2025, several civil liberty groups \u2014 including SIREN and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, both organizations that helped coordinate Wednesday\u2019s protest \u2014 sued San Jose, alleging that city authorities are violating the California constitution\u2019s ban on unreasonable searches<\/a> by sifting through license plate data without a judicial warrant.<\/p>\n In April, three San Jose residents filed a lawsuit in federal court<\/a> alleging license plate searches violate the Fourth Amendment\u2019s protection against unreasonable searches. The court is scheduled to hear arguments in San Jose\u2019s motion to dismiss on Thursday.<\/p>\n Critics have similarly expressed concerns<\/a> about \u201cside-door searches,\u201d in which federal agencies gain access to Flock data through other California agencies that conduct the search on their behalf. Despite SJPD utilizing a Flock feature that does not allow federal agencies to access data from the city\u2019s cameras, an analyst found that SJPD allowed searches by other state agencies that were fulfilling requests for federal immigration agencies<\/a>.<\/p>\n At the protest Wednesday, attendees led chants such as \u201cdata privacy is a right, we will fight with all our might\u201d and \u201cno safety, no peace, get Flock off our streets!\u201d before heading into the meeting to share their concerns via public comment. Two protestors wore enlarged cardboard CCTV cameras on their heads.<\/p>\n \u201cThe city cannot continue operating a mass surveillance system while failing to enforce its own policies and failing to protect its own residents,\u201d said Musa Tariq with CAIR\u2019s Bay Area chapter. \u201cShut it down. Audit the system. Hold abusers accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n The unauthorized access by an SJPD officer was an \u201cegregious breach of public trust and data violations\u201d and was followed by an \u201cutter failure to promptly disclose what happened both to the public and the city,\u201d Woo said.<\/p>\n If the city will not cancel its contract with Flock, the organizers urged it to suspend use of the system until the city auditor and independent police auditor carry out a full audit with community input on its methodology, which would then be shared with the public upon its completion.<\/p>\n \u201cThe severity of this violation calls for even stronger action to rebuild public trust, transparency and accountability in the system,\u201d Woo said, noting that though the council has expressed that it recognizes the necessity of more controls on ALPR cameras, the current proposals are \u201cfar from sufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot legislate or truly eliminate the possibility of abuse within these ALPR systems,\u201d Woo said. \u201cThe best way to eliminate any possibility of abuse is to turn the cameras off.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/SJM-L-FLOCKPROTEST-1001-3.jpg\")
People wearing camera masks protest Flock cameras at San Jose City Hall in downtown San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (Shae Hammond\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/SJM-L-FLOCKPROTEST-1001-9.jpg\")
People protest Flock cameras at San Jose City Hall in downtown San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (Shae Hammond\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/SJM-L-FLOCKPROTEST-1001-5.jpg\")
A person holds a sign at a Flock camera protest at San Jose City Hall in downtown San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (Shae Hammond\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Members of a San Jose City Council committee instructed staff Wednesday to develop possible safeguards for Flock automated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[184,7,138,100,7361,88,90,89,2125,5278,198,200,9140],"class_list":["post-481088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-news","tag-protests","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-police-department","tag-san-jose-politics","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-south-bay","tag-surveillance-cameras"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481088","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=481088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}