{"id":84068,"date":"2026-09-21T22:43:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T05:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=84068"},"modified":"2026-09-21T22:43:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T05:43:29","slug":"the-flock-backlash-and-growing-revolt-against-license-plate-surveillance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=84068","title":{"rendered":"The Flock Backlash and Growing Revolt Against License Plate Surveillance"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is part 2 in a two-part series exploring the government\u2019s expanding use of surveillance technology as part of its immigration enforcement operations. You can read Part 1 here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

SAN FRANCISCO<\/strong> \u2014 Jonathan Paz, a candidate for Congress from Waltham, MA, worked for Flock Safety from 2024 to mid-2025 as part of the government affairs team. \u201cI represented them in city councils, in public hearings and to elected officials\u201d said Paz, speaking on a Sep. 10 panel<\/a> on local resistance to federal surveillance held by American Community Media at the World Affairs Council in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

Flock Safety, known for its widespread automated license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras, has been facing massive national backlash for privacy concerns.<\/p>\n

Paz said he initially joined the company believing that its cameras would \u201chelp find missing kids, recover stolen vehicles and even solve hit-and-runs\u201d \u2014 but he soon saw a larger aim to embed Flock technology in municipal budgets: \u201cThe reality is it\u2019s all baloney.\u201d<\/p>\n

What triggered his departure was the realization that for tech companies like Flock, \u201ctheir main role is to surveil the public and they basically work around public and legal scrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n

He Sold Cities on Flock Cameras. Now He\u2019s Helping Communities Fight Them.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

ALPR Flock cameras are sold to cities as public-safety tools, but can also be used to track and arrest people, be they immigrants or political targets, raising concerns about civilian privacy rights including the Fourth Amendment.<\/p>\n

There are more than 120,000 Flock cameras nationwide<\/a> conducting roughly 20 billion scans monthly across 49 states \u2014 but internal and independent police audits have suggested that less than 1% of raw data \u201chits\u201d lead to an actual law enforcement action.<\/p>\n

Nearly 40%<\/a> of roughly 18,000 U.S. law enforcement agencies have contracts with Flock, according to the company.<\/p>\n

Assurances that data would remain local are rarely held up, Paz said: \u201cThese companies are almost immune not only to local legal scrutiny; they\u2019re also immune to statewide scrutiny, because federally speaking, the Fourth Amendment is mythical. It\u2019s basically dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

His former team aimed to secure council votes even against civil opposition, briefing sympathetic members ahead of meetings so \u201cthe public will wasn\u2019t going to be represented that night,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

In his own city of Waltham, Massachusetts, 12 cameras went up overnight with no public hearing, he said.<\/p>\n

After leaving Flock, Paz co-founded a rapid-response network in Massachusetts and helped build a database identifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents\u2019 vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should already assume DHS has access to these ALPR networks \u2026 you should assume that they have geospatial awareness of who\u2019s coming in and who\u2019s coming out,\u201d Paz said. \u201cThe law is not going to protect you. \u2018El pueblo salva al pueblo<\/em>\u2019 \u2014 the people save the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>
From L to R: Jonathan Paz, Candidate for Congress in MA 5th district, ex-Flock whistleblower; Brian Hofer, Executive Director, Secure Justice; Kimberly Woo, Community Organizer, SIREN Immigrant Rights; Lena Graber, Senior Managing Attorney,\u00a0Immigrant Legal Resource Center; and Abdi Soltani, Executive Director, ACLU of Northern California (Credit: Peter Schurmann)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Pushback in California<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Brian Hofer, executive director of Oakland, California nonprofit Secure Justice, has worked on surveillance oversight in nearly 100 U.S. jurisdictions over 12 years.<\/p>\n

At least 184 contracts nationwide have been canceled since August, according to the organization\u2019s tracker, with terminations rising from about four a day in August to roughly eight a day in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m actually unbelievably inspired by the outpouring of opposition to Flock all across the country,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like that. It is stunning.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of August, about 46%<\/a> of Americans oppose ALPRs being used in their community \u2014 up 13 points from the previous year \u2014 with 17% not sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s never just a license plate number,\u201d said Hofer. \u201cIt knows who you\u2019re driving with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flock\u2019s vehicle \u201cfingerprint<\/a>\u201d feature can also identify cars by color, make or bumper sticker without a plate number, and the system maps which vehicles regularly travel together.<\/p>\n

Oakland, California, alone logged 638 million plate scans last year and more than 210,000 third-party data searches a month, Hofer said. \u201cFor immigrants, it\u2019s like you\u2019re driving and you think you\u2019re in a sanctuary city or a sanctuary state like California \u2014 they\u2019re sending your data out the back door.\u201d<\/p>\n

He argued that litigation and public pressure are more effective checks than policies alone. \u201cThe only two strategies I really see working right now are flooding the courts and flooding the council chambers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Our data will be weaponized\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cNo matter how perfect the policy, the current federal government has no bounds to the lawless terror,\u201d said Kimberley Woo, community organizer with the California-based Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN).<\/p>\n

She described her own story of immigration surveillance. Two extended family members who had waited more than 20 years for green cards were detained at their final residency interview; one was deported, and the other chose to self-deport rather than be separated.<\/p>\n

The fear has since \u201crippled to the rest of my family,\u201d she said, describing relatives who feared applying to eligible programs or green card renewals \u201cbecause they fear that our data will be weaponized \u2026 The scariest part of mass surveillance is we don\u2019t know how our data is tracked, accessed or shared.\u201d<\/p>\n

SIREN \u2014 with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the ACLU of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation \u2014 sued<\/a> San Jose last November over its database of nearly 500 ALPR cameras and millions of annually stored location records.<\/p>\n

Last February, SIREN also helped organize over 20 local organizations through a campaign that led Mountain View\u2019s city council to unanimously end<\/a> its Flock contract and forgo replacement vendors.<\/p>\n

Woo said the anti-ALPR coalition has since spread to jurisdictions throughout Santa Clara County including San Jose, Gilroy, Palo Alto, Saratoga and Los Altos, with organizers using public-records requests, audits, rallies and public education campaigns.<\/p>\n

\u2018A political story\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cThis is a time when we need California to lead again on civil rights and constitutional issues,\u201d said Abdi Soltani, executive director of the ACLU of Northern California, pointing to the state constitution\u2019s explicit right to privacy<\/a> against unreasonable searches and seizures \u2014 a crucial legal protection as federal Fourth Amendment safeguards weaken in practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery person deserves the freedom of movement, the right to move about their community without the government tracking every movement across cities and within cities,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt really rubs against the American sentiment of liberty to have this much government power over our daily lives. It\u2019s a bipartisan issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Social media posts critical of Flock skyrocketed between July and August alone, according to Washington Post data<\/a>, with right-wing accounts posting about mass surveillance over three times more on average than left-wing accounts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe targeting of immigrants for deportation and detention through this aggregation of data really lands hard on a vulnerable community,\u201d added Soltani.<\/p>\n

While Flock says<\/a> federal data-sharing is disabled by default and local communities control their own data policies, these restrictions can be bypassed by 1:1 sharing<\/a> agreements or \u201cside door<\/a>\u201d searches conducted by law enforcement on behalf of federal immigration enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n

A public-records investigation by 404 Media revealed<\/a> over 4,000 lookups by local or state police searching Flock networks using terms like \u201cimmigration,\u201d \u201cICE,\u201d or \u201cICE+ERO\u201d \u2014 the latter an acronym for ICE\u2019s Enforcement and Removal Operations division.<\/p>\n

Sanctuary policies<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Lena Graber, a senior staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC), noted that ICE does not need current surveillance technology for many arrests. Agents still arrest people at immigration courts, check-ins and workplaces, while more than half of ICE arrests nationwide occur after another law enforcement agency transfers<\/a> someone into federal custody.<\/p>\n

Sanctuary laws limiting local police cooperation with ICE remain a strong factor. California, home to roughly 25%<\/a> of the nation\u2019s immigrants, accounted for 8%<\/a> of ICE arrests last summer even amid statewide spikes, while immigrants were roughly four times more likely to be arrested in Texas, which holds over two-and-a-half times<\/a> as many detainees.<\/p>\n

\u201cSanctuary policies do work,\u201d said Graber. \u201cThat\u2019s part of why the Trump administration hates them so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surveillance technology is nevertheless expanding ICE\u2019s ability to identify targets.<\/p>\n

Combining government databases, \u201cbuying records from data brokers and scraping social media allows ICE to develop even more leads on who is an immigrant and who might be deportable,\u201d Graber explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurveillance is not a technology story; it\u2019s a political story,\u201d Graber added. \u201cAutocrats use surveillance to suppress dissent, and the more corrupt and unjust your government, the more you rely on surveillance to maintain power and to suppress the opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is part 2 in a two-part series exploring the government\u2019s expanding use of surveillance technology as part of its immigration enforcement operations. You can read Part 1 here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"Selen\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

SELEN OZTURK<\/a><\/h2>\n

ACoM editor and research director Selen Ozturk was born in Istanbul and raised in the Bay Area. She holds a philosophy degree from UC Berkeley. Her work has been published in the\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle,\u00a0SFGATE,\u00a0Bay City News,\u00a0PopMatters, and\u00a0Senses of Cinema, among many other outlets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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