{"id":82247,"date":"2025-12-05T02:51:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T02:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/82247\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T02:51:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T02:51:08","slug":"advocates-council-members-urge-end-to-use-of-flock-surveillance-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/82247\/","title":{"rendered":"Advocates, council members urge end to use of Flock surveillance system"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"a<\/a>Anti-ALPR activists gather at Civic Center Plaza on Dec. 4, 2025 in front of a giant inflatable camera. (Photo by Adrian Childress\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

Councilmembers Sean Elo-Rivera and Henry Foster III joined community advocates Thursday to urge San Diego to halt its use of Flock<\/a> automated license plate readers.<\/p>\n

Over 50 advocates gathered at Civic Center Plaza chanting \u201cGet the Flock out!\u201d and carrying signs saying \u201cBroken trust, needs repair.\u201d<\/p>\n

The call comes ahead of Tuesday\u2019s city council meeting, where members will consider whether the San Diego Police Department<\/a> should continue using Flock\u2019s ALPR system. <\/p>\n

Advocates say a data breach<\/a> involving unauthorized searches of San Diegans\u2019 data \u2014 along with documented abuses in other states \u2014 shows the technology poses serious privacy risks. Other officials, however, say the tool is essential for solving crimes, recovering stolen vehicles and keeping the city safe.<\/p>\n

The TRUST SD coalition \u2013 that stands for Transparent and Responsible Use of Surveillance Technology San Diego \u2013\u00a0held a news conference Thursday to call attention to Flock\u2019s issues. The data breach resulted in entities outside San Diego making thousands of searches of locals\u2019 travel information; the reason for those searches remains unknown.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Advocates flagged issues with Flock across the nation, including a police chief in Georgia<\/a> who was recently charged with using the Atlanta company\u2019s readers to stalk and harass people. Flock has disputed<\/a> some of the other claims against them as misleading.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Foster said that when other cities and states are experiencing issues it suggests that it is \u201cnot a one-time mistake, it reflects a deeper pattern.\u201d He added, \u201cWe just need to make sure that who we are doing business with is a responsible party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elo-Rivera said that Flock\u2019s \u201cpattern of abuse\u201d makes the firm impossible to trust. Advocates fear that federal agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security, Border Patrol and ICE will access the data to fulfill the Trump administration\u2019s deportation agenda.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number of people who are being given legitimate reason to fear the federal government is rising on a daily basis,\u201d said Elo-Rivera.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although California law mostly forbids ALPR data from being shared with federal agents, a recent lawsuit in El Cajon<\/a> over a breach of this law has fueled fears about its use. Flock maintains that data sharing with federal agencies is the decision of local law enforcement<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Patricia Mondragon of Alliance San Diego fears use of the technology will erode trust in local law enforcement. \u201cWhen people are afraid to call for help, we are all less safe,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Branden Sigua of the ACLU chapter that serves San Diego and Imperial counties, expressed concern that the surveillance technology would be used to monitor people attending protests and union meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dystopian future George Orwell envisioned in 1984 is our dystopian present,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ALPR technology has assisted local law enforcement in finding stolen vehicles as well as solving homicide, robbery and assault cases. San Diego police said that since automated license plate reader technology was adopted in 2024, it has assisted with 600 investigations, including the recovery of $5.8 million in stolen property and 440 stolen vehicles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a statement, Councilmember Raul Campillo said that APLR technology is critical in keeping San Diego safe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thought of doing away with ALPRs is short-sighted and goes against the city\u2019s mission to protect residents and visitors alike. We must not allow fear to harm already worried communities by making them less safe,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The coalition is united on ending the use of Flock\u2019s ALPR technology, but it was unclear if advocates agreed on whether alternative technology would be acceptable.<\/p>\n

Seth Hall of TRUST SD said that instead of the \u201cbest of the best\u201d technology, the city, with Flock, selected the \u201cworst of the worst\u201d technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat the city has people within it that are fighting to continue to use the worst of the worst should be unacceptable,\u201d Hall said. \u201cThe community rightly expects that if we\u2019re going to use dangerous technologies like this, that we\u2019re going to use the best of the best \u2014 the safest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier last month, the city\u2019s Privacy Advisory Board issued a formal recommendation<\/a> that San Diego stop using the Flock system, and identified 31 policy and product changes needed to operate the technology with professionalism.<\/p>\n

The following week, the council\u2019s Public Safety Committee, which includes Campillo, unanimously voted<\/a> to approve the continued use of Flock technology without any changes to the policies or product. <\/p>\n

READ NEXT\n\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anti-ALPR activists gather at Civic Center Plaza on Dec. 4, 2025 in front of a giant inflatable camera.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[46775,46777,18339,16786,74,76,75,9862,21524,9140],"class_list":["post-82247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-alpr-technology","tag-henry-foster-iii","tag-license-plate-reader","tag-raul-campillo","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-police-department","tag-sean-elo-rivera","tag-surveillance-cameras"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82247","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=82247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}