Quick Take
The Santa Cruz City Council will weigh pulling out of its contract with Flock Safety at its Tuesday meeting after several recent data breaches and sustained community pushback about the use of the company’s automatic license plate readers.
The Santa Cruz City Council could terminate its contract with Flock Safety and vote to stop using the company’s automatic license plate readers at its Tuesday meeting. The council originally planned to consider changes to the contract in December, but postponed it to January to give the city time to review the contract and propose amendments.
The city’s two-year contract is set to expire on March 27. It allows for a termination of the agreement with 30 days’ notice, which would mean the end of the contract would be Feb. 12 at the earliest if the council decides to pull out, according to the agenda report.
The report prepared by Councilmembers Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson, Renee Golder and Susie O’Hara recommends terminating the city’s contract with the Atlanta-based vendor of artificial intelligence-powered surveillance cameras. It also recommends asking staff to suggest an approach for using a similar camera system from a different vendor if and when there is a better option. The report says such an option would include stronger local controls as well as policy safeguards to “ensure system transparency, protect civil liberties, and reduce cybersecurity risks, including strict controls on data access and sharing and independent auditability.”
The report says the councilmembers’ recommendation isn’t meant to be a statement against the Santa Cruz Police Department or against the cameras as a law-enforcement tool. It states that the three councilmembers recognize their usefulness in solving crimes and understand that removing the cameras can make some investigations more difficult. However, it also says that “public trust is a core component of effective public safety, and continued use of a vendor whose governance model is widely contested may undermine that trust.”
City staff have been working on amendments to the city’s contract with Flock. But their latest report states that “risk cannot be adequately mitigated under the current vendor relationship and federal administration,” so the city should pause to reevaluate other vendors and safeguards.
Flock cameras have become a major topic in Santa Cruz County and beyond following a number of data breaches and privacy concerns. The city announced in November that it would pause its participation in a statewide system that shares data from license plate cameras among law enforcement agencies after Santa Cruz Police Chief Bernie Escalante said Flock Safety had been violating a California law earlier in 2025. The company’s national search tool had allowed out-of-state law enforcement agencies to access license plate data collected by agencies in California, including data from Santa Cruz.
In November, Capitola Police Chief Sarah Ryan confirmed that federal and out-of-state law enforcement agencies accessed data collected by the cameras on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement between 2024 and early 2025.
Additionally, a Georgia police chief searched Capitola’s Flock Safety camera data in early 2025, according to data compiled by countywide grassroots organization Get The Flock Out (GTFO), which opposes the cameras. The chief had been arrested on charges that he used his city’s automated license plate recognition cameras to stalk and harass private citizens. GTFO also found that state agencies accessed Santa Cruz camera data thousands of times on behalf of federal law enforcement agencies since 2024.
State law, specifically Senate Bills 34 and 54, prevent police from sharing data with out-of-state agencies and limit the use of local resources to assist federal immigration enforcement, respectively.
The meeting is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
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