filed a lawsuit against the city and the San Diego Police Department<\/a> seeking to halt the city’s use of ALPRs. The suit alleges that through its network of at least 500 ALPR cameras, San Diego is violating the California Constitution by infringing on citizens’ privacy rights.<\/p>\nThe suit seeks to have a court order the cessation of the city’s use of ALPR technology, to uninstall all street-light cameras and associated hardware, and to delete all data collected by ALPRs and street-light cameras.<\/p>\n
“The city of San Diego and the San Diego Police Department’s ALPR system is an invasive, around-the-clock mass surveillance technology that can reveal intimate details of a person’s life,” said Samantha Itazawa, advancing justice staff attorney at the ACLUF-SDIC. “This information can demonstrate travel patterns of individuals as they go to work, drop their children off at school, or attend a house of worship, doctor’s office or protest. This widespread collection of ALPR information poses serious threats to communities’ privacy and freedom of movement.”<\/p>\n
In December 2025, the council voted 5-3 to continue using ALPR technology during an annual technology review. Whitburn voted for the technology.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of San Diegans spoke at the meeting, with the majority in opposition to ALPR technology, but the council took the advice of the SDPD to continue its use, physically tied to the Smart Streetlights contract approved with Ubicquia in 2024.<\/p>\n
SDPD Chief Scott Wahl said the council committee’s decision on Wednesday was short-sighted.<\/p>\n
“Removing a proven public safety tool from our streets is a loss for San Diego communities,” he said. “We don’t have to guess whether ALPR helps solve crimes. We’ve seen it work in more than 900 cases, from stolen vehicles and kidnappings to murders.<\/p>\n
“For years, San Diego has shown that this technology can be used responsibly, with strict rules, regular audits and strong safeguards to protect people’s privacy,” Wahl said. “We’ve put in the work to build that system. Yet we’re being told that removing ALPR will somehow improve police staffing, ease fears about immigration enforcement or fix the city’s budget problems. It won’t accomplish any of those things. What it will do is make it harder for our officers to solve crimes, find suspects and deliver justice for victims. That’s what’s at stake.”<\/p>\n
The 30 days the SDPD is allowed by local law to keep the data matches La Mesa and National City as the least amount of time in the county. The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office and Coronado, Oceanside, Carlsbad and Chula Vista allow the data to be kept for a year. In Escondido, that increases to two years.<\/p>\n
“I’m not going to deny the effectiveness if you are watching everyone, all the time,” Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera said last year. “Flock is a proven bad actor who is unwilling or unable to stop their technology from being abused.<\/p>\n
“For years, San Diegans asked the city to invest in community instead of spending millions on creepy surveillance. The mayor and a majority of the council ignored us,” Elo-Rivera said. “Across the country and here at home, those concerns have been proven right — improper data sharing, misuse of the technology, and false arrests.”<\/p>\n
In June, as the council and the mayor’s office worked to create a balanced budget, Flock cameras again came under scrutiny. Several council members felt there was an unfair juxtaposition between defunding libraries and recreation centers and the $2 million ALPR contract with Flock.<\/p>\n
“License plate readers being directly opposed to children and families is a false comparison and is being done deliberately,” Councilman Raul Campillo said. “Criminals who have beat families to death in my district have been caught by this. Who here wants to go tell those families `no, your family doesn’t get justice?”‘<\/p>\n
Ultimately five of the nine-member council voted to leave the contract untouched. Whitburn’s turn on the issue could be Flock’s death knell in the city, depending on November’s election.<\/p>\n
“When someone calls for assistance, they don’t need a Flock camera; they need help to be on the way quickly,” Whitburn said. “Let’s turn off the cameras and cancel the Flock contract. Let’s use the savings to speed up response times when people call for help.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego City Council’s Budget and Government Efficiency Committee Wednesday voted to end a contract with Flock…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,13134,76,75],"class_list":["post-505367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-city-council","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505367","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=505367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}