Rally over Flock cameras contract vote in Richmond

Our Take

Credit to NBC Bay Area for actually pointing a camera at the people pointing questions back at their city council. Richmond is the latest Bay Area city to face a Flock Safety vote, and the fact that a rally formed around it tells you something: residents are catching on faster than the sales pitch can outrun them. These contracts get pitched as a quiet line item — a few cameras, a vendor, a budget number — while the real product being purchased is a permanent record of who drives where, sold back to police departments as a subscription.

What rarely gets debated in these council chambers is where the data actually goes once it's collected. Flock's network doesn't stop at city limits — plate reads get shared across agencies and states through opt-in data-sharing arrangements that most residents never voted on and most councilmembers can't fully explain. That's the gap Richmond's rally is trying to close: forcing a public conversation before the contract ink dries, instead of after.

If you want to see whether your own neighborhood already has these cameras installed, check our map. And if a similar contract vote is coming to your city council, our take-action page has tools for showing up before the vote, not after.