Automated license plate readers have become a familiar sight along Southern California roadways, quietly logging thousands of vehicles a day for local police departments. Now, for the sixth year running, Sacramento lawmakers are weighing whether the state needs tighter rules on how that data gets used, stored and shared.
The cameras — perched on utility poles, patrol cars and intersections — snap photos of passing license plates and instantly check them against law enforcement databases flagging stolen vehicles, getaway cars or vehicles tied to missing persons cases. Over the past year, the technology has been credited with helping solve homicides, bank robberies, hit-and-run collisions and even a wildfire arson case.
But the same tool that police praise as a force multiplier has drawn fierce criticism from privacy advocates across the political spectrum. Last month in Monterey County, a man was accused of ripping three of the cameras down with his truck. And civil liberties groups warn the devices open the door to abuse — from officers misusing access to stalk people, to out-of-state agencies potentially mining California plate data to track down abortion patients or providers.
More than 230 police and sheriff’s departments statewide now rely on the cameras, many supplied by the Atlanta-based company Flock Safety. That widespread adoption has renewed a push by Democratic state lawmakers to rein in how long agencies can hold onto the data and who gets to see it.
State Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, a Riverside Democrat, is carrying this year’s version of the effort, Senate Bill 1013. It would generally cap data retention at 30 days unless the information is tied to an open investigation or a missing-persons search. The bill also would require training for officers who access the system, mandate tracking of database searches, and bar law enforcement agencies from signing contracts with camera vendors that give federal agencies or out-of-state police default access to California plate records.
“This bill is about one simple principle: protecting the privacy and safety of Californians while ensuring law enforcement tools are used responsibly before it’s too late,” Cervantes told an Assembly privacy committee last month.
The provision targeting vendor contracts stems largely from revelations that Flock Safety had, through a pilot program, allowed federal authorities to search local plate databases. Tracy Rosenberg of the advocacy group Oakland Privacy, which backs the bill, said local police departments were blindsided by the arrangement.
“They learned after the fact, like our advocates did,” Rosenberg said. “And we all said, ‘What the …’ You know, pick your four-letter word.”
Flock Safety has said on its website that it no longer runs those federal pilot programs and does not share data with immigration enforcement by default. The company maintains that local agencies retain full control over the information their cameras collect.
Law enforcement groups, however, remain firmly opposed to the legislation. At least 39 police agencies and officer associations have lined up against SB 1013, and those same groups have poured a combined $5.6 million into legislative campaigns since 2000, according to the CalMatters Digital Democracy database.
Tustin Police Chief Sean Thuilliez, who leads the California Police Chiefs Association, pointed to a case from May in which a woman was shot and killed on an Orange County street shortly after testifying against her ex-husband in a restraining-order hearing. Investigators initially considered the ex-husband a suspect, but Thuilliez said Tustin’s network of 102 license plate readers — eight of them Flock cameras — helped detectives quickly clear him and instead track down the victim’s former boyfriend near the Mexico border. He now faces a first-degree murder charge.
“It’s technology mixed with good investigative work,” Thuilliez said. “But within one weekend, we were able to arrest the suspect for this person’s murder.”
Berkeley police reported similar gains after installing 52 Flock cameras last year. According to a department report to the city council, the cameras contributed to 121 investigations, 58 arrests and the recovery of 37 stolen vehicles. The agency’s robbery clearance rate jumped from 34% in 2024 to 49% the following year, which officials credited in part to the technology.
Those success stories appear to have swayed Gov. Gavin Newsom last year, when he vetoed a similar measure — also authored by Cervantes — that would have required departments to purge plate data within 60 days. In his veto message, Newsom warned that such restrictions could hamper investigators working cold cases or searching for missing people. He also noted the state budget lacked funding for the mandatory Department of Justice audits the bill called for.
This year’s version attempts to address those concerns by allowing data retention in missing-persons cases and making the audit requirement contingent on future state funding. Newsom’s office has not said whether he supports the current proposal, which has cleared the Legislature so far with only Republican lawmakers opposed. It now awaits action in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
The debate isn’t confined to Sacramento. In Washington, Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie has signaled he’ll introduce federal legislation to cut off funding to cities and police departments that deploy Flock or similar camera systems to monitor law-abiding residents, framing it as a Fourth Amendment issue.
For Rosenberg, the goal isn’t to eliminate the technology but to put guardrails around it.
“There is kind of a balancing act. We as human beings also need some camera-free space,” she said. “We don’t want to be on camera every minute of every single day.”
Original source: CalMatters
