East Palo Alto will reconsider its contract with a controversial surveillance company whose license plate data has reportedly been accessed by ICE.
City council will vote tomorrow on a five-year, $453,250 contract with Flock Safety for five new license plate readers and access to the company’s network, extending a one-year, 25-camera pilot program that launched in December.
Police Chief Jeff Liu says the cameras have helped police solve “numerous investigations,” and that the company’s wide network allows it to track suspects who have left city limits – nearly every city between Sunnyvale and South San Francisco has contracted the company.
But the company has been in the news lately over reports ICE agents have accessed its data, including some reports of officers in cities that use the software handing over information from other cities to federal agents.
At a Nov. 4 meeting where council was asked to renew the contract, several residents showed up to express concern about ICE accessing the data.
“We have a big undocumented population in East Palo Alto… We have to protect our community and I don’t think that us having the Flock camera is a protective measure,” Lourdes Best said during public comment.
Flock’s use explained
In a report to council, Liu said he’s aware of the concerns but that the data breaches were “not the result of system vulnerabilities” and that “personnel working for Flock customers granted access” to federal agents. He said the department conducts monthly audits of its Flock data and only police agencies in California have accessed it.
Additionally, he said the data is encrypted and deleted after 30 days, and the company has made safety improvements, including letting cities require a case number and reason to search their data.
But Councilman Carlos Romero said at the meeting the data could potentially be a tool for the Trump administration, even if federal agencies haven’t used it up to this point.
“Why would we want to give, potentially, the federal government – again, a government that I believe is at this point lawless, and makes up the rules as it goes — a potential tool that they could use to round up, harass, deport many of our residents?” Romero said.
Council asked Liu if the police department could buy a different license plate reader instead, but he said that Flock’s wide network is part of the draw.
Company invited to defend itself
Council decided it had too many questions about the company’s security protocols to make a decision in the moment.
“We’re actually discussing more the company itself rather than what your intent is in doing it,” Ruben Abrica said. “In some ways, I feel like a representative of the company should be here so everybody could ask them direct questions.”
Liu said he could get a representative from Flock to answer council’s questions, and council said they’d revisit the issue then.
Liu is asking council to approve the contract when they discuss it tomorrow, saying it “will ensure continued access to this valuable technology to support crime prevention and investigations.”