Monterey County weighs 10-year Flock Safety deal as residents raise privacy fears

Our Take

Ten years. That's the length of the leash Monterey County supervisors are considering putting on their own oversight powers, according to KSBW Action News 8's reporting on the proposed Flock Safety renewal. A decade is a political eternity — long enough for three or four election cycles, several changes in county counsel, and whatever new data-sharing 'features' Flock decides to bolt onto its platform next. Once you sign a contract that long, you've essentially told your constituents their concerns don't matter until the 2030s.

The 63 cameras already blanketing Monterey County aren't just reading plates for stolen cars — they're building a quiet, permanent record of who drives where, when, and how often. Residents raising privacy fears aren't being paranoid; they're reacting to a system that was sold as a crime-fighting tool but functions as a mass movement-tracking database, one that regularly gets queried by outside agencies with little local accountability. A 10-year lock-in all but guarantees that whatever surveillance creep happens over that span happens without a meaningful renegotiation point.

If you're in Monterey County, this vote is your window to show up and ask hard questions before the ink dries for a decade. Check our camera map to see where these readers already sit in your community, and visit our take-action page for ways to push back before contracts like this one become permanent fixtures nobody remembers agreeing to.