Flock: Out-of-state police access Silicon Valley license plate readers
Source: Associated Press
Out-of-state police access Silicon Valley license plate readers
By BRANDON PHO/San Jose Spotlight
Updated 3:10 PM EST, March 5, 2026
The company behind a network of automated license plate reading cameras is losing its public safety contracts across Silicon Valley.
The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors is the most recent slate of officials to join Los Altos Hills and Mountain View in severing ties with Flock Safety over concerns the company has enabled unlawful data-sharing between California law enforcement and out-of-state police. Mountain View officials revealed last month Flock had included their camera network in a national “lookup” setting without the city’s permission, allowing unauthorized law enforcement agencies to access their data.
San José Spotlight has learned the practice repeated elsewhere in the county.
Police in Massachusetts, Georgia and other states appeared hundreds of times in a camera network audit of neighboring Los Altos, whose 18 cameras remain operational. The city’s network logged 20 searches by out-of-state police for “immigration violation” reasons in the first two months of 2025, according to records obtained by this news outlet.
-snip-
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/general-news-law-enforcement-california-c4329597fa7ffefa4f35db18ef79e2cb