Ongoing debate over Flock surveillance cameras in California cities | KTVU
The short version: KTVU reports Richmond, CA is the latest city wrestling with whether to keep Flock Safety ALPR cameras, joining a growing list of California communities pushing back on automated surveillance.
Our Take
Credit to KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco for tracking a pattern we keep seeing play out city by city: officials install Flock cameras with little public debate, then residents find out later and start asking hard questions. Richmond is just the newest entry on a growing list of California towns forced to reckon with a surveillance network they never really voted on in any meaningful way.
These "ongoing debates" aren't abstract. Every Flock reader logs plate, location, and timestamp data that can paint a detailed picture of where you go and when — data that's been shared across agencies, sometimes far outside the jurisdiction that installed the camera, and sometimes misused. The fact that city councils are still "grappling" with this years after Flock's rollout shows how little scrutiny these systems got the first time around.
If your city is quietly running Flock cameras, or debating whether to renew a contract, that's exactly the moment public pressure matters most. Check our camera map to see what's already been deployed near you, and use our take-action resources to push your local officials toward transparency before the next contract renewal sails through unnoticed.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.