Flock & ALPR Cameras in East Palo Alto, California
Volunteers have reported 38 automated license plate readers in and around East Palo Alto — cameras that log every passing plate with a time and location.
Jurisdiction · by recorded street address
The 38 cameras counted on this page are every reader mapped within about 20 kilometres of East Palo Alto, so the count crosses municipal lines. By the street address recorded for each one, 22 of them sit inside East Palo Alto itself.
The rest sit in Menlo Park (14), Palo Alto (2).
26 of them name an operator in the record: East Palo Alto Police Department (15), Menlo Park Police Department (7), The Home Depot (4). 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.
- Dec 2, 2025 On the agenda: East Palo Alto City Council - Dec 02, 2025 — Automated License Plate (Dec 2)
- Jun 17, 2025 On the agenda: East Palo Alto City Council - Jun 17, 2025 — Automated License Plate (Jun 17)
- Mar 18, 2025 On the agenda: East Palo Alto City Council - Mar 18, 2025 — Automated License Plate (Mar 18)
- Sep 17, 2024 On the agenda: East Palo Alto City Council - Sep 17, 2024 — Surveillance Camera (Sep 17)
Every record for this area on the Docket → · nothing is ever deleted.
- Oct 5 Flock Safety camera newly reported
Newly reported by volunteers — cameras may have been up long before someone mapped them.
Where the cameras are in East Palo Alto
The readers mapped around East Palo Alto break down as 37 Flock Safety. Named operators in the reports: East Palo Alto Police Department, Menlo Park Police Department, The Home Depot. The first camera here was reported in Jan 2025; the most recent in Jul 2026.
- University Avenue — 7 readers
- Donohoe Street — 4 readers
- East Bayshore Road — 4 readers
- Willow Road — 3 readers
- Bay Road — 3 readers
- San Francisco Bay Trail — 2 readers
- Newbridge Street — 2 readers
- Woodland Avenue — 2 readers
- Bell Street — 2 readers
- Ivy Drive — 1 reader
- East Palo Alto — 1 reader
- Chaucer Street — 1 reader
+ 5 more streets and roads mapped around East Palo Alto — all on the live map above.
East Palo Alto CA PD and the sharing network
Per Flock’s own transparency portal, East Palo Alto CA PD runs 25 cameras of its own, has logged 229 plate-database searches, has captured 361,081 vehicle records. Its network connects to 322 other agencies — a plate read here can surface in searches far beyond city limits.
Connected agencies include: Alameda CA PD, Alameda County CA SO, Albany CA PD, Alhambra CA PD, Anaheim CA PD, Anderson CA PD, Angels Camp CA PD, Antioch CA PD.
East Palo Alto in the San Mateo County picture
San Mateo County has 628 reported cameras county-wide and ranks #164 of 3,222 U.S. counties for cameras per resident, inside the top 7.6% nationally. That’s across 745,100 residents and 1,847 road miles. By road density that is 0.34 cameras per road mile, in the top 0.4% of counties nationally.
Where contributors recorded what a camera watches, the split here is 12 traffic. Operators named on the record: East Palo Alto Police Department (15), Menlo Park Police Department (7), The Home Depot (4).
What’s watching East Palo Alto
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 East Palo Alto — here’s where that data goes. Counts cover cameras reported closest to East Palo Alto (within ~20 km), so nearby towns share the same corridors. Spot one that’s missing? Report it on DeFlock.
The latest around East Palo Alto
- 2 new license plate readers reported around East Palo Alto, CA
- East Palo Alto council doubles down on Flock cameras
- East Palo Alto: City Council Upholds Contract For Flock Cameras
- East Palo Alto council keeps Flock camera contract despite surveillance concerns
What you can do in East Palo Alto
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 East Palo Alto
← All California cameras, counties & cities
Camera reports: the open-source DeFlock project. Place data: GeoNames (CC BY).