Some South Pasadena residents want the city’s Flock license plate readers gone — they’re not alone

A group in South Pasadena gathered Wednesday to urge their city council to end its contracts with Flock Safety, the controversial surveillance company that operates AI-powered automated license plate readers in thousands of communities across the U.S., including many in California.

The small town has 27 Flock cameras that monitor the cars that come and go in the community of around 25,000 people — one of the highest densities in the region, according to the mayor. That information is temporarily stored in a database that's shared with law enforcement agencies across the state.

The South Pasadena City Council is now taking a deeper look at its contracts with Flock, after reports that some local law enforcement agencies in Southern California illegally shared license plate reader data with federal immigration agents. Those included the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office, which South Pasadena shares its data with.

"I’m deeply concerned for the safety of our community. Flock has proven to be careless with our data," Olivia Ramirez, a South Pasadena resident, told the city council in public comment Wednesday. “Continuing to work with Flock will erode public trust and, as a consequence, will harm public safety.”

The speakers are part of a growing movement, as residents across California push local law enforcement and city governments to reconsider their ties with the Flock over concerns about surveillance and how their data could be used in the federal government's mass deportation campaign.

How other communities are responding

Santa Cruz killed its contract with Flock in January following reports that the city's data was accessed by agencies outside of California and shared with ICE. Last month, Mountain View Police Department shut off its Flock cameras after an audit found that federal agencies had accessed its data in 2024. Other local governments in the Bay Area have followed suit.

The Oxnard Police Department also suspended its use of Flock license plate readers last week, after an audit revealed that data from the city's cameras was made available to federal law enforcement agencies between February and March of 2025 through a "nationwide query" setting, against the city's wishes and state law. A California law prohibits sharing license plate reader data with agencies outside of the state.

Flock acknowledged the incident in a blog post this week, saying that out-of-state law enforcement agencies' access to some of its camera networks was "inadvertent" and it was not possible in some cases to determine the cause.

The post also said that Flock had strengthened its protections, including by excluding federal agencies from national and statewide lookup networks, and implementing guardrails that keep California agencies from accepting or initiating data sharing with federal agencies or out of state entities.

"Flock sincerely regrets the confusion and mistrust this has created within several communities," the blog post reads. "Flock takes full accountability for this situation, and has made changes and improvements to significantly enhance agency ability to effortlessly comply with applicable laws, regulations, and community norms that govern information sharing."

That wasn't good enough for Sam Gurley, who rallied with his neighbors in South Pasadena on Wednesday night.

“It isn't until they get caught that they say, 'Hey, I know that this is a law in California. We got caught, let's fix it,'" said Gurley, who said he became alarmed when he learned that Flock cameras were deployed. " Now that I have a better understanding of how the system, the city use and share this data with each other, I'm more terrified than I've ever been."

How Flock works

Flock has contracts with more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies around the nation that use its cameras and license plate readers. The cameras are sometimes attached to street poles — including one on Fair Oaks Avenue in South Pasadena near the entrance to the 110 Freeway, where cars streamed by the nondescript camera under a small solar panel on Wednesday evening.

There are 27 Flock cameras installed around the city of South Pasadena.

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Libby Rainey

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LAist

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Flock cameras "continuously scan and record images" of vehicles' license plates numbers, color, and make, according to a report put together by city staff in South Pasadena. The cameras record the date, time and GPS location every time a car passes by. According to Flock's website, the cameras also pick up other identifying features of cars, like stickers and roof racks.

The technology automatically cross references license plate numbers with law enforcement databases and alerts the police department if it detects a vehicle connected with a criminal investigation, according to the report.

Flock's database also allows law enforcement agencies to search the location of vehicles outside of their own city. Flock stores the data for 30 days and then automatically deletes it, although cities can adjust the length of time they retain the data. Flock emphasized to NPR that cities control how the data they collect is shared.

Law enforcement agencies have hailed the technology for helping them locate suspects and stolen vehicles. At a February city council meeting, South Pasadena Sergeant Andy DuBois called the Flock cameras a "force multiplier" for officers trying to solve crimes.

" It allows agencies to share relevant information in a secure and regulated way. By participating in this network, we benefit from broader technological coverage without needing to add additional staffing," DuBois said.

Nick Hidalgo, senior staff attorney with ACLU of Northern California who has done work on automated license plate readers for years, called the technology a "dragnet.”

"What they are collecting is a person's location — because any license plate information can be connected very easily to a driver," he said. "You can capture a ton of information about where a person lives, works, etc. We're talking about truly sensitive information here."

A deeper look at the law

In California, state law SB 34 prohibits agencies from sharing information gathered by automated license plate readers with out-of-state and federal agencies. Police departments also must keep a record of their queries of the system. Another state law, SB 54, limits California law enforcement agencies from assisting with immigration enforcement.

In 2023, the state's attorney general Rob Bonta issued two bulletins to state and local law enforcement on complying with those laws when using automated license plate reader data.

"The majority of California law enforcement agencies collect and use images captured by ALPR cameras, but few have appropriate usage and privacy policies in place," a press release from Bonta's office said at the time.

Last year, Bonta sued the city of El Cajon in San Diego County, saying it had shared data from its system of Flock automated license plate reader cameras with more than 100 out-of-state law enforcement agencies. The mayor of that city responded with defiance, saying it shares data with other states because "crime doesn't stop at the border."

Flock Safety says that it does not work with ICE or any agency within the Department of Homeland Security. It also emphasizes that it is local agencies that own the data that their cameras collect, not Flock.

South Pasadena faces a deadline

The city of South Pasadena pays around $83,000 annually for two contracts with Flock – one which sunsets this month, on March 19. The council has until March 18 to decide whether or not to auto-renew the contract for two more years.

If the city decides to terminate the contract, it will have to repay a federal grant of around $45,000 it used to install 14 cameras. The city could also decide to end its second contract with Flock before its March, 2027 end date. That would cost the city a $6,500 termination fee, but it would receive a refund for the unused days of service, according to a city report.

South Pasadena Mayor Sheila Rossi told LAist that she's concerned about Flock's system and reports about data being shared out of the state of California. She also told the city council in February that South Pasadena had a far higher density of cameras than many surrounding communities, saying it reached "the category of surveillance."

South Pasadena says it's implementing changes to its camera policies, including requiring monthly audits of how the system is queried and requiring agents that search the data include a case number.

Councilmembers in February also raised the idea of reducing their system's data retention to less than 30 days. The state of New Hampshire requires law enforcement agencies to delete automated license plate reader data after three minutes if it does not yield a hit with criminal investigations.

Rossi said the council will look into options including contracting with other automated license plate readers and canceling one of the city contracts with Flock.

" Cities have a responsibility to make sure the safeguards around these tools keep pace," she said.

Susan Seager, a First Amendment lawyer and South Pasadena resident, said she wants the cameras gone, period.

" I don't trust Flock and I don't trust our federal government, and I want to be able to trust our local police department," she said. "I don't think our little small city should be part of that surveillance state."