Flock & ALPR Cameras in Santa Maria, California
Volunteers have reported 162 automated license plate readers in and around Santa Maria — cameras that log every passing plate with a time and location.
Jurisdiction · by recorded street address
The 162 cameras counted on this page are every reader mapped within about 20 kilometres of Santa Maria, so the count crosses municipal lines. By the street address recorded for each one, 159 of them sit inside Santa Maria itself.
The rest sit in Nipomo (1).
78 of them name an operator in the record: Santa Maria Police Department (75), Lowe's (3). The operator is who runs the camera, which is not always the local government.
2 cameras have no municipality recorded yet.
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 21 Flock Safety camera newly reported
Newly reported by volunteers — cameras may have been up long before someone mapped them.
📷 67 new license plate readers just reported around Santa Maria, CA. Newly mapped by volunteers — see what's watching. #ALPR #Surveillance #SantaMaria
Where the cameras are in Santa Maria
The readers mapped around Santa Maria break down as 161 Flock Safety. Named operators in the reports: Santa Maria Police Department, Lowe's. The first camera here was reported in Jul 2025; the most recent in Aug 2026.
- South Bradley Road — 9 readers
- East Betteravia Road — 7 readers
- Miller Street — 7 readers
- McCoy Lane — 6 readers
- East Main Street — 6 readers
- North Blosser Road — 5 readers
- East Donovan Road — 5 readers
- South Broadway — 5 readers
- West Betteravia Road — 5 readers
- North Depot Street — 5 readers
- South College Drive — 4 readers
- North Broadway — 4 readers
+ 18 more streets and roads mapped around Santa Maria — all on the live map above.
Santa Maria CA PD and the sharing network
Per Flock’s own transparency portal, Santa Maria CA PD appears in the sharing network with connections to 40 other agencies.
Santa Maria in the Santa Barbara County picture
Santa Barbara County has 162 reported cameras county-wide and ranks #839 of 3,222 U.S. counties for cameras per resident. That’s across 443,975 residents and 5,240 road miles. By road density that is 0.03 cameras per road mile, in the top 20.8% of counties nationally.
Where contributors recorded what a camera watches, the split here is 153 traffic. Operators named on the record: Santa Maria Police Department (75), Lowe's (3).
Camera activity around Santa Maria, last 30 days
5 newly reported in our hourly change log for Santa Maria. Latest change logged Aug 27, 2026.
What’s watching Santa Maria
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 Santa Maria — here’s where that data goes. Counts cover cameras reported closest to Santa Maria (within ~20 km), so nearby towns share the same corridors. Spot one that’s missing? Report it on DeFlock.
The latest around Santa Maria
- Santa Maria man convicted of murder in 2023 shooting with the help of Flock Safety cameras
- 3 new license plate readers reported around Santa Maria, CA
- 67 new license plate readers reported around Santa Maria, CA
- 4 new license plate readers reported around Santa Maria, CA
What you can do in Santa Maria
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 Santa Maria
← All California cameras, counties & cities
Camera reports: the open-source DeFlock project. Place data: GeoNames (CC BY).