Sen. Schiff questions Flock over ICE access to license plate reader databases

Our Take

Credit to ABC 10 News for pushing this story into the open: a sitting U.S. Senator is now asking the exact question we've been asking since day one — who actually gets to look at all those scanned plates, and does anyone outside the local police department get a peek? California has some of the stronger statutory guardrails in the country limiting ALPR data sharing with out-of-state and federal agencies, but a law on the books only matters if it's enforced and audited. Flock's business model depends on interconnected networks and data-sharing agreements between agencies, which makes 'we followed the rules' a much easier claim to make than to verify.

This is precisely the accountability gap that makes mass ALPR surveillance so dangerous. Once a network of cameras is logging every car that passes, the question of who can query that database stops being a technical detail and becomes a civil liberties question — especially when federal immigration enforcement is in the mix and state law is supposed to be the wall keeping that data local. Senators asking pointed questions on camera is good; it's not the same as an independent audit trail showing every query, every requester, and every justification.

If you want to know whether Flock or other ALPR cameras are already watching the roads in your community, check our map, and if you'd rather not wait for Washington to sort this out, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back locally.