Surveillance company Flock generates controversy — and a roster of L.A. clients

Santa Cruz tried retired the surveillance institution Flock Safety for a small implicit a twelvemonth earlier deciding it was clip to determination on.

Cambridge, Mass., besides had capable and tore up its declaration successful December. Now, immoderate officials successful San Diego person begun to person 2nd thoughts of their own.

In caller months, dozens of cities person chopped ties with Flock — the nation’s largest supplier of automated integer licence sheet readers — implicit fears that information the institution captures is helping powerfulness President Trump’s wide deportation campaign.

The aforesaid can’t beryllium said successful 1 peculiarly astonishing place: Los Angeles. Here, Flock inactive has an anxious lawsuit basal of section elected officials, constabulary officers, homeowners associations and businesses.

Unlike immoderate of its competitors, the Atlanta-based institution has not lone marketed its sheet readers to instrumentality enforcement arsenic a captious crime-fighting tool, but aggressively pitched its merchandise to backstage citizens, experts say.

“They are tremendous investigative tools,” said LAPD spokesperson Capt. Michael Bland.

But for critics, there’s an evident downside: the imaginable tracking of law-abiding citizens without a warrant connected a standard erstwhile thought unimaginable.

“These tin beryllium truly almighty tools to find someone, and individuality them. But erstwhile you don’t person a suspect, everyone tin beryllium a suspect,” said Hannah Bloch-Wehba, a prof of instrumentality astatine Texas A&M University.

A Flock spokesperson did not respond to aggregate requests for remark for this story.

Typically mounted connected thoroughfare poles oregon atop constabulary cars, sheet readers continuously show passing vehicles, signaling their determination astatine a circumstantial day and time. But Flock’s AI-powered cameras spell adjacent further by besides documenting different identifying conveyance details, specified arsenic make, exemplary and color, arsenic good arsenic immoderate distinctive markings similar scratches oregon dents connected a bumper.

From there, constabulary tin easy hunt for the determination of circumstantial vehicles successful the company’s immense nationalist database, allowing them not lone to perchance retrace the whereabouts of idiosyncratic suspected of a crime, but besides person predictions astir aboriginal movements.

In a presumption to the Picfair Village Neighborhood Assn., Flock boasted that its sheet readers had helped lick “10% of reported transgression successful the U.S.” In L.A., the institution said, its exertion had been deployed to nab structure pirates and car thieves, not to notation played a relation successful solving a “high-profile transgression involving stolen weapons from a politician’s home.”

The problem, astatine slightest successful the minds of a increasing fig of privateness and migration advocates, is that the readers seizure a immense magnitude of accusation not related to immoderate circumstantial transgression investigation. The quality of national authorities to entree Los Angeles Police Department surveillance information straight from companies similar Flock oregon from determination quality hubs called fusion centers undermines the city’s committedness arsenic a haven for immigrants, critics say.

“License sheet readers play a captious relation successful providing directions and a roadworthy representation to ICE for going retired to kidnap people,” said Hamid Khan, an organizer with the activistic radical Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, which past outpouring wrote a missive to the Police Commission urging it to rewrite the LAPD’s policies to guarantee accusation connected law-abiding drivers isn’t shared with national authorities.

The commission, the LAPD’s civilian oversight panel, ordered a survey connected the department’s licence sheet scholar strategy that is expected to beryllium completed this summer.

LAPD officials accidental records collected by the sheet readers are accessible lone to 5 smaller constabulary agencies with which the section has data-sharing agreements. Furthermore, they accidental the usage of the readers, similar with different constabulary technology, is restricted by authorities laws that bounds accusation sharing with national agencies similar Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Plate-reading exertion has been astir for decades. But arsenic the Trump administration’s deportation crackdown has ramped up, residents, privateness advocates and officials successful immoderate cities crossed the state person mounted campaigns urging their section governments to halt utilizing the technology.

Much of the backlash has been aimed specifically astatine Flock — a heavyweight successful the surveillance marketplace that contracts with a reported 5,000 U.S. policing agencies. The company’s data-sharing with national authorities and cybersecurity lapses person been documented by 404 Media and different outlets.

After antecedently denying it had national contracts, Flock Chief Executive Garrett Langley admitted successful interviews successful caller months that the institution has worked with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations. The institution has since said that it has severed ties with some agencies, and responded to different concerns by giving communities much powerfulness to determine whom to assistance entree to authorities oregon nationwide lookup networks.

In Bloch-Wehba’s view, Flock’s meteoric emergence is simply a triumph of selling implicit results.

“There’s precise small grounds connected the existent interaction of these technologies connected convulsive transgression rates astatine all,” said Bloch-Wehba, who noted an detonation of surveillance exertion successful 2020 to show protesters oregon enforce rules implemented to curb the dispersed of COVID-19 during the pandemic.

In the L.A. area, Flock has gone caput to caput with rival Vigilant Solutions, which has for years supplied the bulk of the LAPD’s sheet readers. But today, cops tout Flock cameras astatine assemblage meetings and immoderate City Council members person paid to bring them to their districts.

Flock has besides sought to flex its governmental might. City records amusement the institution has stepped up its lobbying efforts astatine City Hall successful caller years — hiring Ballard Partners, a almighty Florida-based steadfast whose employees present see erstwhile City Councilmember Joe Buscaino.

Many Flock sheet readers, though, person been purchased by assemblage groups. In astir cases, residents set unneurotic to rise wealth to bargain the devices, which they past either assistance entree to oregon donate to the LAPD via the Police Foundation, the department’s nonprofit charity. By donating the equipment, vicinity groups whitethorn get to power what benignant of exertion is installed and by whom.

“My existent penchant would beryllium a afloat staffed LAPD, and past we don’t person immoderate cameras,” said Jim Fitzgerald, who lives successful Venice and serves connected its vicinity council.

Roy Nwaisser, who chairs the Encino Neighborhood Council’s nationalist information committee, said that Flock often played up the shortage of constabulary officers during its presentations to residents successful his neighborhood.

“I personally person concerns with however Flock conducts their businesses, but they are the biggest subordinate and if LAPD is moving with them, they conscionable person to marque definite that determination are those safeguards,” helium said. “I don’t cognize that automated licence sheet readers are each that effectual erstwhile owned by neighbors surviving connected the thoroughfare who decided to get together.”

Police executives person defended the practice, saying licence sheet information has helped lick untold numbers of crimes, from run-of-the-mill structure theft to high-profile cases similar the 2024 attempted assassination of then-presidential campaigner Donald Trump astatine a Florida play course. The exertion besides came into play during an probe into the fatal drive-by shooting of a 17-year-old lad astatine a North Hills intersection past month. According to a hunt warrant affidavit, detectives tracked a fishy conveyance to a location successful Sun Valley aft it was captured by respective scanners adjacent wherever the shooting occurred.

Because truthful galore sheet scanners are successful backstage hands, it’s hard to accidental however galore of the devices are successful cognition citywide.

The L.A. Bureau of Street Lighting, which is liable for installing the devices connected city-owned property, said it has mounted 324 implicit 5 years — though that tally doesn’t see mobile sheet readers.

Bland said the LAPD has 1,500 constabulary vehicles equipped with the scanners. Police besides person entree to an further 280 sheet readers successful fixed locations passim the city, which are owned privately oregon by the department, helium said. He estimated that astir 120 of those readers beryllium to Flock.

The cameras are besides integrated with the department’s caller drones, which are being paid for by a $1.2-million donation from the Police Foundation.

The devices are besides utilized for galore different purposes extracurricular of regular instrumentality enforcement. Big container retailers similar Home Depot and Lowe’s person installed Flock cameras crossed hundreds of parking lots. Many borderline crossings person them. In East L.A., they are utilized arsenic an emissions-reduction instrumentality by tracking semi-trailers. USC uses them to enforce parking violations, and the L.A. Department of Transportation has deployed specified cameras to nab motorists who parkland successful autobus lanes.

Since the opening of 2025, a small-but-growing fig of states and cities person enacted laws aimed astatine curbing the usage of surveillance exertion specified arsenic licence sheet readers.

Under California law, constabulary agencies are required to follow elaborate usage and privateness policies governing licence sheet data, restrict entree to authorized purposes, and regularly audit searches to forestall misuse. Gov. Gavin Newsom antecedently vetoed a measure that would person restricted usage of specified data, saying the regulations would impede transgression investigations, but the measure has been reintroduced this year.

Nearly 50 cities nationwide person opted to deactivate their scanners oregon cancel contracts with Flock, mostly successful caller months, according to the website DeFlock.me, which has acceptable retired to representation locations of the company’s cameras. Responding to nationalist pressure, immoderate places similar Santa Cruz canceled their contracts aft realizing that they had been sharing their information much broadly than they had known, including with national authorities.

Other Flock customers, similar Oakland, person dug successful and decided to support their cameras astatine the urging of section homeowners relation representatives and tiny concern owners — but implicit the objections of the city’s ain Privacy Advisory Commission.

Among the places that person started to reconsider their narration with Flock is San Diego. In December, metropolis leaders divided connected the issue, but yet voted to support utilizing Flock’s scanners aft a contentious nationalist proceeding gathering successful which they heard from hundreds of residents opposed to the surveillance technology.

Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera said helium voted against moving with Flock based connected what helium saw arsenic the company’s mediocre way grounds of “data retention” and “consumer protections.” Although the metropolis has operated Flock sheet readers and cameras for years, the stakes are acold higher now, helium said.

“We person a statesmanlike authorities that is not lone flouting the law, but takes pridefulness successful ignoring owed process, successful violating rights of radical they deem unworthy of the rights and protections,” said Elo-Rivera, who represents an ethnically divers territory successful San Diego’s Mid-City area. “They person a by-any-means-necessary attack erstwhile it comes to migration enforcement. And present they person a instrumentality that makes it precise casual for them to way radical down.”

Times unit writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.