Getting Flock Out of San Francisco

Why San Francisco Must Act

Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) are cameras that take photos of passing vehicles, logging plate number, time, and location. Law enforcement agencies use them to determine where people have been traveling and when. They can be useful in specific cases, such as when police are tracking the movements of someone who committed a crime, or checking whether a vehicle was near the site of an incident.

But groups like the ACLU have serious concerns about ALPRs and their impacts on privacy and safety – concerns I share. Flock, the most prominent ALPR vendor, allows police departments to make their data available to other departments across the country, which amounts to a nationwide warrantless surveillance infrastructure, and that local officers have been carrying out national searches on behalf of ICE.

Unfortunately, SF is no exception. The SF Standard found that SFPD gave out-of-state agencies direct access to San Francisco's Flock data between at least August 2024 and February 2025, enabling more than 1.6 million searches that were illegal under California law, and identified searches whose logged reason referenced ICE Fugitive Operations. A second SFPD audit released in June 2026 found nearly 300 more improper searches by out-of-state and federal agencies over roughly a year, routed through a regional intelligence center. As immigrants are being kidnapped on and off our streets in San Francisco, sharing their movements with federal agencies is completely unacceptable and dangerous.

Given how few guardrails exist, we also see officers misusing this data to track people they know, with dire consequences for domestic violence survivors. A Washington Post investigation found at least 50 law enforcement officers accused or charged with misusing Flock or similar tools, and more than half of those cases involved surveillance of romantic partners. In California, a former deputy was convicted on ten charges including stalking after a months-long campaign against his former fiancée. Most of these incidents came to light only after victims reported the behavior, instead of through any of the internal safeguards Flock claims to have.

This danger is not limited to domestic violence. ALPRs record who parks near a gay bar, a gender clinic, an HIV testing site, or a support group, and that record can out someone who has not come out yet. In 2023, a conservative Catholic group used purchased location data to identify and out gay priests, and one officer has already been accused of using Flock to check whether his ex-girlfriend had visited an abortion clinic.

District 8 just lived through a version of this fight. This summer, Castro residents learned that Badlands, Toad Hall, and The Mix were using PatronScan Guard+, a system that photographs patrons at the door and stores their zip code, birth date, gender, and image in a database that can be shared across venues. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) warned that for venues serving vulnerable communities, the stakes of this technology are especially high. After a boycott campaign led by Fight for the Future and Castro patrons, all three bars paused their use of the system. Our community organized and won that fight in a matter of weeks. We can and should bring the same effort to the citywide camera network that logs every trip to the exact same bars.

I'm highly concerned about the proliferation of Flock cameras across San Francisco. SFPD has installed roughly 500 Flock cameras citywide at a cost of nearly $4 million, with a $1.2 million annual renewal. Flock is a vendor voters never chose, and it has been implicated in serious data misuse again and again. A class action filed in San Francisco Superior Court in February 2026 alleges Flock illegally shared California drivers’ location data with federal agencies, including ICE and CBP.

Other cities across the country and across the state have already said no. Santa Cruz voted 6-1 to terminate its Flock contract after learning its data had been accessed by out-of-state agencies roughly 4,000 times, Mountain View's council voted unanimously to end its contract, Los Altos Hills ended its relationship with Flock, Santa Clara County stopped using Flock in February, Denver removed all 110 of its cameras when its contract expired in March 2026, and Evanston, Illinois ordered Flock to remove its cameras after a state audit found federal agencies including CBP accessing the data. According to Secure Justice, 214 cities and towns have dropped Flock since 2021, and 90 of them did so in August 2026 alone.

Yet San Francisco is not having a serious conversation at City Hall about getting Flock out. Part of the reason may be that two members of our Democratic County Central Committee work for Flock and are registered lobbyists. A resolution by a DCCC member calling on the city to end its Flock contracts until the company could prove its data was secure was sent to the Issues Committee, which one of these lobbyists chairs, and never reached the full body.

Flock cameras are often credited with lowering property crime, but the evidence is thin. The most rigorous independent study to date, covering Flock deployments in 216 jurisdictions from 2017 to 2023, found an 11 percent drop in motor vehicle theft but no statistically significant effect on any other type of property crime, and clearance rates for vehicle theft had already been rising before the cameras were installed. The same researchers note that Flock's own vendor analyses report much larger effects but compare adopters with non-adopters without accounting for selection.

To be clear, ALPRs are not speed cameras. San Francisco's automated speed enforcement program is a separate system authorized by AB 645 that I wholeheartedly support. AB 645 requires a confidential records system that authorizes public agencies to access those records only for specified purposes, and the 33 cameras issued 91,000 citations in their first five months, restoring traffic enforcement that had collapsed in this city. That is the kind of automated enforcement that saves lives without building a surveillance system that harms vulnerable people and communities.

Ending San Francisco's Flock Contract

The city has now been caught twice letting outside agencies into the Flock database, even though we are a sanctuary city. Flock continues to promise it will improve security, but we have no means of holding them to it. We need to end the relationship with Flock, an ALPR vendor who has shown they simply can’t be trusted.

My plan:

• Introducing legislation to end the city's Flock contract within my first 90 days in office. The ordinance will direct SFPD not to renew the Flock contract and will set a fixed timeline to decommission the network. We also must require the department to certify that all San Francisco data has been deleted from Flock's servers and from any agency that improperly accessed it
• Holding a public hearing on the Flock program in my first month. I will request a hearing at the Board's Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee on the June 2026 audit and SFPD’s compliance with California's ALPR law.
• Using the budget to get Flock out of SF. The Flock renewal is a line item on our city’s already over-stretched budget. If we don’t have the votes for a full contract termination, I’ll work to hold that money in the annual budget process until the safeguards below are in place.
• Demanding the full case list. SFPD says Flock solves crimes. I will request a public accounting of every District 8 investigation in which Flock data was material to an arrest or charge, so that we can get a meaningful sense of how ALPR data is actually being used to solve crimes.

Setting Rules Any Camera System Needs to Follow

Banning one vendor does not solve the problem if a future ALPR vendor shares data the same way. Whatever cameras remain in San Francisco need to operate under rules written into law.

My plan:

• Amending the city's Surveillance Technology Ordinance (Admin Code 19B) to set hard limits on license plate data usage. SF should cap data retention at 30 days, which is the standard San Jose adopted. We should refuse to participate in any vendor's shared national or statewide network. And no outside agency without a court order from a California court should be able to access the data. We also must bar searches related to immigration enforcement, reproductive health, LGBTQ+ cultural spaces, or gender-affirming care.
• Requiring a public audit every quarter. The Controller should publish who searched San Francisco's data, from what agency, how many times, and why. The June 2026 breach was discovered by the police department itself, which I commend. But moving forward, the public should not have to wait for SFPD to decide to audit – it should be something that the city does with regularity and transparency.
• Writing the rules into a Police Commission General Order. The Police Commission must adopt the same limits as a Department General Order, so the protections won’t be undone through Prop E (2024)’s fast-track process.
• Prohibiting city money from going to any surveillance vendor that shares data with federal immigration agencies. If a company cannot show that San Francisco's data stays in San Francisco, it does not get a San Francisco contract. Period. There is no reason for the city to work with or spend hard-earned taxpayer dollars on vendors that collaborate with ICE.

Getting Flock Out of District 8 First

The Castro is a destination for LGBTQ+ people who are not out at home, at work, or in their own families. A record of every car that parks near Badlands, the Castro Country Club, or a clinic on Market Street is a threat to the queer community people. District 8 can’t wait for a citywide vote to protect our neighborhoods.

My plan:

• Publishing a map of every Flock camera in District 8. My office will walk and document each Flock camera and what it’s pointed at. We will publish that map on the district website.
• Requesting an immediate pause on new installations in the district. In my first week, I will send a formal letter to SFPD and the Police Commission asking for camera-by-camera justification for each District 8 Flock camera, and will push for a freeze on any additions.
• Prioritizing removal near sensitive sites. Cameras near LGBTQ+ bars, community spaces, health clinics, HIV testing sites, places of worship, and schools must come down as soon as possible.
• Giving neighbors a direct way to push back. My office will take and publish records requests on behalf of District 8 constituents who want to know whether their plates have been searched, and by whom.

Replacing Flock With Public Safety Measures That Work

Nobody in District 8 wants fewer resources for safety after the last several years. I want the same money spent on things that actually keep people safe and do not build a database of who visits our neighborhoods that then gets shared with ICE.

My plan:

• Expanding, not cutting, mental health crisis response teams. Mental health crisis response teams work – and they’re getting cut right now in favor of spending on things like Flock. What we need is more, not less, competent care for the people on our streets who are highly distressed or causing disturbances in our neighborhoods. This also helps us free up police time so they can focus on solving crimes and protecting San Franciscans.
• Upgrading lighting. Better street lighting has the strongest evidence of any intervention for reducing street crime. We need to continue lighting every corner in District 8 so that people can be safer as they walk home, get off work, or drive.
• Creating a dedicated property crime investigator for District 8. Car break-ins and retail theft are often only solved by dedicated follow-up. I will push SFPD to assign an investigator to District 8 property crime who works from victim reports and the city's own 19B-governed cameras.
• Adding fixed cameras where merchants want them. If businesses on a corridor want cameras, the city can install and control them under Admin Code 19B. This doesn’t include plate reading or a vendor cloud. This data can’t be shared outside SFPD, and has a short retention period.
• Creating merchant safety grants. We need small grants for merchants to do door staff training, de-escalation, and non-biometric security so they can protect their staff and patrons without scanning anyone’s face.
• Beefing up speed cameras. Automated speed enforcement under AB 645 is working. It’s reducing speeds and saving lives. And it operates under strict, purpose-limited records rules. I support expanding this program to keep pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers alike safe.

Protecting Privacy Beyond Flock

The PatronScan fight showed that surveillance is becoming a more widespread issue than just ALPR cameras. We need to support our businesses while protecting privacy across the board, so that everyone – no matter if their sexuality or immigration status – can safely live in and visit San Francisco.

My plan:

• Requiring standardized privacy impact assessments before the city deploys any new surveillance technology. District 8 voted against 2024’s Prop E, which has let SFPD make moves without consulting voters and the Board of Supervisors. I will introduce legislation requiring a public privacy assessment before any new surveillance tool is used in San Francisco.
• Bringing surveillance lobbying into the open. Flock's lobbyists sit inside our own party's local committee and have kept a resolution on this issue from ever reaching a vote. I will support stronger disclosure requirements for surveillance vendor lobbying at City Hall and the Democratic County Central Committee, and I will keep pushing this conversation into public view where it belongs.
• Standing with organizers. Castro patrons, Fight for the Future, DeFlock SF, Secure Justice, and the ACLU have done the work to expose how this data is used. As Supervisor, I will be their partner at City Hall.