Flock & ALPR Cameras in Chinatown, California
Volunteers have reported 78 automated license plate readers in and around Chinatown — cameras that log every passing plate with a time and location.
Jurisdiction · by recorded street address
The 76 cameras counted on this page are every reader mapped within about 20 kilometres of Chinatown, so the count crosses municipal lines. By the street address recorded for each one, 0 of them sit inside Chinatown itself.
The rest sit in San Francisco (76).
40 of them name an operator in the record: San Francisco Police Department (39), Impark (1). The operator is who runs the camera, which is not always the local government.
Source: community-mapped camera data (OpenStreetMap, ODbL), with addresses resolved by Nominatim.
Need this city’s camera data? Custom extracts are free for researchers, journalists and advocates. Ask for it.
- Sep 28 Pelco camera newly reported
- Sep 28 Pelco camera newly reported
- Sep 8 Flock Safety camera newly reported
Newly reported by volunteers — cameras may have been up long before someone mapped them.
Where the cameras are in Chinatown
The readers mapped around Chinatown break down as 78 Flock Safety, 4 Bosch Security Systems, 3 of unrecorded make. Named operators in the reports: San Francisco Police Department, Impark. The first camera here was reported in Feb 2024; the most recent in Sep 2026.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway — 10 readers
- Lombard Street — 7 readers
- Bay Street — 5 readers
- Broadway — 4 readers
- North Point Street — 3 readers
- Van Ness Avenue — 3 readers
- Columbus Avenue — 3 readers
- Herb Caen Way... — 3 readers
- Marina Boulevard — 3 readers
- Union Street — 3 readers
- Powell Street — 3 readers
- Howard Street — 2 readers
+ 18 more streets and roads mapped around Chinatown — all on the live map above.
Chinatown in the San Francisco County picture
San Francisco County has 443 reported cameras county-wide and ranks #471 of 3,222 U.S. counties for cameras per resident, inside the top 22% nationally. That’s across 836,321 residents and 371 road miles. By road density that is 1.20 cameras per road mile, in the top 0.1% of counties nationally.
Where contributors recorded what a camera watches, the split here is 81 traffic, 2 entrance, 1 street. Operators named on the record: San Francisco Police Department (40), Impark (1).
Camera activity around Chinatown, last 30 days
6 newly reported, 13 removed in our hourly change log for Chinatown. Latest change logged Sep 8, 2026.
What’s watching Chinatown
These aren’t red-light cameras. Automated license plate readers like Flock Safety’s photograph every plate that passes, log the time and place, and store it in a searchable database that’s often shared far beyond Chinatown — here’s where that data goes. Counts cover cameras reported closest to Chinatown (within ~20 km), so nearby towns share the same corridors. Spot one that’s missing? Report it on DeFlock.
The latest around Chinatown
- 2 license plate readers reported removed near Chinatown, CA
- 6 license plate readers reported removed near Chinatown, CA
- 2 new license plate readers reported around Chinatown, CA
- 3 license plate readers reported removed near Chinatown, CA
What you can do in Chinatown
Ask who approved these cameras, how long plate data is kept, and who it’s shared with. File a public records request, raise it at a council meeting, and see the full playbook on Take Action. Fighting this locally? Join or start a chapter and we’ll amplify you.
Not sure what one looks like? See photographs of installed cameras before you go looking.
Cameras near Chinatown
← All California cameras, counties & cities
Camera reports: the open-source DeFlock project. Place data: GeoNames (CC BY).