My Personal Statement on Flock Safety Cameras in Santa Barbara
Public Safety, Privacy, and Accountability
Santa Barbara is a community that values safety, civil liberties, and public trust. While technology can play a role in public safety, it must be deployed responsibly, transparently, and with meaningful safeguards. After reviewing how Flock Safety’s camera systems operate, I believe their continued use in our city raises serious concerns about privacy, oversight, and the risk of harm to innocent residents.
What Flock Safety Is
Flock Safety is a private, for-profit company that provides automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras and related software to law enforcement agencies, homeowner associations, and private entities. These cameras capture images of vehicles that pass through their field of view and record data such as license plate number, location, date, and time. The system also identifies vehicle characteristics including make, model, color, and other visible features. Flock refers to this data as a “Vehicle Fingerprint.”
Flock Safety’s CEO and founder, Garrett Langley, has stated the company’s goal is:
“To eliminate crime by blanket monitoring all neighborhoods.”
While Flock states that its systems are intended to support investigations, this approach reflects broad, ongoing data collection rather than narrowly targeted surveillance.
Data Access and Oversight
The data collected by Flock cameras is stored on Flock Safety’s servers and accessed by customers through the company’s software platform. Law enforcement agencies typically pay for access to this data rather than hosting it themselves. Policies governing who may search the data, how long it is retained, and whether it can be shared with other agencies vary by jurisdiction and by contract.
Because this data is held by a third-party vendor, civil liberties organizations have raised concerns that access to historical location data may occur without a warrant in some circumstances, depending on local policy and interpretation of existing law. Courts across the country continue to examine how long-term location tracking intersects with Fourth Amendment protections.
Expanding Capabilities: Flock Nova
Flock Safety has introduced a product known as Flock Nova, which is designed to help investigators analyze license plate data alongside other records. According to reporting and company materials, Nova is intended to help law enforcement identify potential connections between vehicles, people, and locations by drawing from multiple datasets.
An internal Flock presentation states:
“An investigator could jump from a license plate reader hit to a person & understand content linked to other people related to it, through marriage or even gang affiliation. Creating a very powerful linking of an individuals network.”
Privacy advocates have warned that tools which combine location data with other records can significantly expand surveillance capabilities beyond their original purpose, increasing the risk of misuse or overreach.
Real-World Harm and Documented Risks
Automated license plate reader systems, including those used by Flock Safety, are not infallible. Errors and misuse have led to serious real-world consequences.
August 2020 — Aurora, Colorado: Police stopped Brittney Gilliam and her family at gunpoint after an ALPR system incorrectly flagged their vehicle as stolen. The alert actually referred to a different vehicle in another state. The City of Aurora later settled the case for $1.9 million.
July 2023 — Española, New Mexico: Police detained Jaclynn Gonzales and her 12-year-old sister with weapons drawn after an ALPR misread a license plate. Officers released them after discovering a single-digit error.
2024–2025 — Nationwide: Investigative reporting revealed that FedEx, which operates a private police force, has partnered with Flock Safety to use ALPR technology and share certain data with law enforcement. This arrangement extends license plate surveillance beyond fixed cameras and raises questions about transparency, scope, and public consent.
Sedgwick County, Kansas: A police chief resigned after it was revealed he repeatedly used ALPR access to track his ex-girlfriend’s movements. The case illustrates how surveillance tools can be abused when safeguards fail.
Civil liberties organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation have documented that ALPR errors and misuse can place innocent people at risk, particularly when officers rely on automated alerts without independent verification.
Accuracy and Accountability
Studies and audits of ALPR systems show that misreads can occur due to factors such as lighting, angle, or similar-looking characters. While accuracy rates vary, even a relatively small error rate can have serious consequences when alerts lead to armed stops or detentions. Flock Safety states that responsibility for how data is used rests with the customer agency, which means liability and accountability ultimately fall on local governments and taxpayers.
Does This Reduce Crime?
ALPR technology may assist in solving certain crimes. However, the broader question is whether the benefits outweigh the costs to privacy, civil liberties, and public trust. Continuous, location-based surveillance of residents who are not suspected of wrongdoing represents a significant policy choice that deserves careful public debate.
My Position
Public safety strategies must be effective, transparent, and consistent with our constitutional values. Technologies that enable broad surveillance by a private vendor, with limited public oversight and documented cases of harm, do not meet that standard.
For these reasons, I support removing Flock Safety cameras from Santa Barbara and pursuing safety solutions that protect both our community and our rights.