San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announced new restrictions last week on how police can access and share information collected by the city\u2019s automated license plate readers, saying the changes would preserve a crime-fighting tool while addressing growing concerns about privacy and misuse.<\/p>\n
But some of the safeguards presented as reforms have been required under California law for roughly a decade. And several recommendations from a San Francisco Human Rights Commission investigation into hundreds of instances of unauthorized data access did not make it into the mayor\u2019s package.<\/p>\n
Brian Hofer, executive director of the Oakland-based privacy advocacy group Secure Justice, said the announcement revisits problems privacy advocates have been raising for years without addressing what he sees as the central issue: whether anyone is ensuring the rules are followed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere isn\u2019t one thing that came up in those announcements that we haven\u2019t talked about for the last five years,\u201d Hofer said in an interview with the San Francisco Public Press.<\/p>\n
For Hofer, adding rules without a way to stop improper access before it happens doesn\u2019t fundamentally change the system.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of these things are meaningful,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s all performative art.\u201d<\/p>\n
He characterized the response as an attempt to outlast a burst of public criticism.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey know people have no attention span and don\u2019t know this area, so they\u2019re just talking, and it makes them sound important, but it\u2019s meaningless,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The announcement comes after a year of mounting scrutiny of Flock Safety, the private company that operates San Francisco\u2019s network of more than 400 automated license plate readers. The cameras photograph passing vehicles and record identifying information that police can search during investigations. Flock\u2019s much larger network also allows agencies to share and search data across jurisdictions.<\/p>\n
Hofer argues that it is precisely this ability to combine and share data that makes the technology more consequential than any single license plate scan.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s this aggregation of data,\u201d he said, noting that real-time crime centers are \u201cliterally designed to commingle different databases.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lurie made clear that San Francisco has no plans to abandon the technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis technology keeps San Franciscans safe, and we will not go back to a time when people could break into cars, rob businesses, or commit serious crimes and expect to get away with it,\u201d Lurie said at a Sept. 29 press conference.<\/p>\n
Flock cameras have become an important component of the police department\u2019s Real-Time Investigation Center, which combines automated license plate readers with drones, public safety cameras and other technology to help officers investigate crimes and locate suspects. In April 2025, police reported that the center had assisted in more than 500 arrests since its launch, including 207 involving the Flock network.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last week, Lurie offered an updated figure, saying public-safety technology had assisted in more than 1,500 arrests over the previous two years.<\/p>\n
Hofer said he does not dispute that surveillance technology can contribute to individual arrests. He challenged the broader suggestion that arrest totals demonstrate the technology contributed to San Francisco\u2019s falling crime rate. His first response to such statistics, he said, is:\u00a0\u201cProve it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hofer said crime rose during the pandemic and subsequently fell across jurisdictions, regardless of whether they deployed comparable surveillance systems. This makes it difficult to attribute San Francisco\u2019s decline to the technology.<\/p>\n
He also questioned how agencies substantiate claims that a particular technology \u201cassisted\u201d in an arrest, saying he has repeatedly encountered government reports in which headline numbers were not supported when he sought the underlying records.<\/p>\n
He brought similar skepticism to the safeguards city officials said would make that technology more accountable, questioning how much of what was announced was new.<\/p>\n
Under the new rules, data will be removed from Flock\u2019s platform after 30 days, rather than remaining available there for as long as a year. But Flock itself recently announced a shorter retention period than San Francisco\u2019s new standard. In August, amid nationwide criticism, the company said it would reduce its default retention period for new law-enforcement customers from 30 days to seven.<\/p>\n
New rules require that searches be connected to a specific incident number, officers must state a reason for each search and the system will record who conducted it.<\/p>\n
Those safeguards, however, aren\u2019t new.<\/p>\n
California\u2019s automated license plate reader law, SB 34, already required agencies operating the systems since 2016 to keep records of access to automated license plate reader data. Those records must include the date and time of access, the license plate or other data being searched, the person who accessed it and the purpose of the search.<\/p>\n
The law also requires agencies to protect license plate data from unauthorized access and maintain written rules governing who can access it, for what purpose and when it can be shared.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they\u2019re now saying they\u2019re going to take it seriously and they actually do it, great,\u201d Hofer said. \u201cBut that\u2019s been the law for 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hofer said records he obtained from San Francisco have not contained the information contemplated by the law.<\/p>\n
Data sharing breach<\/p>\n
District Attorney Brooke Jenkins acknowledged that a national backlash was part of the context for the Sept. 29 announcement. Concerns about Immigration and Customs Enforcement, artificial intelligence and government use of data, she said, have created \u201ca lot of unrest about technology.\u201d<\/p>\n
The goal of the new safeguards, she said, is to reassure San Franciscans \u201cto trust us that we\u2019re using it the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n
City officials said the San Francisco Police Department will review its Flock logs monthly, and the city says the Department of Police Accountability will conduct independent audits.<\/p>\n
\u201cSan Francisco controls San Francisco\u2019s data,\u201d Lurie said.<\/p>\n
But the city\u2019s own recent audit shows that hasn\u2019t always been the case.<\/p>\n
A police department audit disclosed in June found that the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center had facilitated 299 searches of San Francisco\u2019s Flock data at the request of federal or out-of-state agencies from May 2025 through May 2026.<\/p>\n
That followed an earlier controversy involving Flock\u2019s \u201cNationwide Lookup\u201d feature. San Francisco officials said Flock had enabled the feature without the police department\u2019s knowledge, allowing agencies outside California to search data collected by San Francisco cameras.<\/p>\n
California law restricts sharing automated license plate reader data with federal and out-of-state agencies. The disclosure also raised questions about San Francisco\u2019s sanctuary ordinance, which generally prohibits city employees from using city resources to assist federal immigration enforcement. If federal agencies were accessing San Francisco\u2019s license plate data for immigration enforcement, the searches could therefore implicate the city\u2019s sanctuary protections.<\/p>\n
Police cut off the regional intelligence center\u2019s access after discovering the searches. Police Chief Derrick Lew noted that his department discovered the problem itself and acted on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe immediately cut off access, reported it, and let the public know what occurred,\u201d Lew said. \u201cThe public needs to know that we are not conducting mass surveillance.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the episode also exposed a basic problem with relying on audits: By the time an improper search shows up in a review, the search has already happened and the information may already have been accessed.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where Hofer argues the new rules fall short.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn real time, no human is involved on the host-agency side ever for any data request,\u201d he said. \u201cYou do not know who is going through your database. You do not know why. You do not know whether it\u2019s within the scope of your policy or state law.\u201d<\/p>\n
An audit, he said, may eventually reveal an improper search, but \u201cthey are never going to notice anything in real time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Human Rights Commission safeguards<\/p>\n
Lurie\u2019s announcement came immediately after the San Francisco Human Rights Commission released the results of a 10-month investigation into whether the police department had violated the city\u2019s sanctuary ordinance by allowing federal agencies to access its license plate data.<\/p>\n
The commission cleared the department, finding that Flock enabled nationwide searching without police knowing about it. Whereas the sanctuary law prohibits city departments and employees from assisting federal immigration enforcement, it does not extend that prohibition to private contractors such as Flock.<\/p>\n
But the commission also found significant oversight problems with police department policy and recommended five policy changes.<\/p>\n
It called on the department to require a specific justification for every search and establish clearer access standards that put the department itself in direct control of Flock\u2019s Nationwide Lookup function, enable available camera options intended to increase transparency, delete license plate data after 30 days, and regularly review Flock\u2019s technology and settings so changes don\u2019t happen without the department\u2019s knowledge.<\/p>\n
The commission also suggested the city consider other vendors, citing concerns about Flock\u2019s representations about data sharing.<\/p>\n
Lurie\u2019s package adopts some of those recommendations. It includes the 30-day limit, more documentation of searches and additional reviews.<\/p>\n
But the new policy does not put San Francisco police in direct control of Nationwide Lookup, as the commission recommended. Instead, the function is currently disabled. The package also does not fully implement the commission\u2019s recommendation to make all available information in Flock\u2019s public Transparency Portal accessible, including redacted search logs, the number of searches and which hotlists are active.<\/p>\n
Asked about the backlash against Flock, Lurie avoided singling it out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever public safety camera company that we are using, they\u2019re going to have to abide by our public safety standards and our civil liberty standards that we\u2019re announcing here today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lew, meanwhile, said the Human Rights Commission had overstepped its authority by moving beyond the question it had been asked to investigate \u2014 whether sanctuary law had been violated \u2014 and into recommendations about police policy.<\/p>\n
Hofer\u2019s criticism goes in the other direction. He said the investigation was too narrow because it focused on the sanctuary ordinance rather than separately examining compliance with California\u2019s automated license plate reader law and San Francisco\u2019s approved surveillance-use policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just, \u2018Did we violate this one provision?\u2019\u201d Hofer said. \u201cIt did not at all look at, \u2018Did this comply with SB 34? Did this comply with the approved use policy under the surveillance ordinance?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
A new crime for misusing data<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s response also includes a proposed change in state law.<\/p>\n
Jenkins said she approached Assemblymember Matt Haney after learning about cases around the country in which police officers allegedly abused access to license plate databases.<\/p>\n
In one case, an off-duty San Jose police officer used a personal device to search license plate reader data for the vehicle of a woman who had accused the officer\u2019s relative of domestic violence, according to police. He then shared her location with the relative.<\/p>\n
The officer was fired, but prosecutors did not charge him because existing California statutes governing unauthorized police database searches do not cover license plate reader data in the same way.<\/p>\n
Jenkins and Haney want to change that.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I began to hear about the many situations that have gone on around this country, and most recently in San Jose, I became concerned,\u201d Jenkins said.<\/p>\n
She said misuse or unauthorized disclosure of license plate reader information should be criminalized \u201cjust as it is for the sharing or misuse of other law enforcement-related data.\u201d<\/p>\n
The proposed legislation would make unauthorized use or disclosure of automated license- plate reader data a crime and require agencies to train people with access to the systems and regularly audit their use. Haney said the legislation is still being developed and that especially egregious conduct could potentially warrant felony penalties. The earliest the bill could be introduced is December.<\/p>\n
Jenkins characterized the proposal as an effort to act before San Francisco experiences the kinds of abuse seen elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Hofer said that punishment after the fact addresses only part of the problem.<\/p>\n
For meaningful oversight, he said, someone independent of the officer conducting a search would need to determine whether the underlying case is legitimate and whether the search is necessary. That would mean preserving the officer\u2019s identity and search purpose, and conducting substantive audits, rather than relying primarily on automated controls and officers\u2019 own explanations for their searches.<\/p>\n
He pointed to San Diego as an example. When the city launched its Flock system in late 2023, a configuration error left its license plate reader data available for direct searches by other California law enforcement agencies. Those agencies conducted nearly 13,000 searches in about three weeks before San Diego discovered and corrected the problem.<\/p>\n
San Diego later moved to a more restrictive system in which outside agencies had to call and justify requests before the city would release its data. Hofer said that in July 2026, outside agencies made 21 such requests.<\/p>\n
For Hofer, the contrast shows what can happen when an officer must persuade another person that a search is warranted, rather than simply querying the database.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey only had 21 because only 21 times did the officers actually feel it was worth it,\u201d Hofer said. \u201cThat tells you how much just nonsense, frivolous fishing expeditions are happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also said stronger civil liability could force governments and surveillance vendors to take existing privacy rules more seriously, pointing to the potential deterrent of \u201creally crushing class actions with big, big, big dollar numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other cities, different approach<\/p>\n
San Francisco\u2019s decision to keep using Flock while tightening its rules isn\u2019t the only response California governments have taken to the recent controversies. Some have suspended their cameras. Others have canceled contracts, restricted their use or considered bans.<\/p>\n