Law enforcement agencies from across the country — including federal agencies — could search a database of license plates recorded by 20 cameras in Palo Alto for about a two-year period.
That’s according to a statement from Palo Alto Police Chief James Reifschneider in response to public record requests filed by the Daily Post.
Flock cameras take pictures of license plates and enters them into a database, which can piece together the comings and goings of drivers — both suspects and people who are innocent.
Cities such as Mountain View have been pulling the plug on their Flock cameras out of concern that the data might be used by federal immigration officers.
The cameras are connected into a national network operated by Flock Safety.
“In late 2023, unbeknownst to many users including PAPD, Flock added a new‘Nationwide Lookup’ search feature. Using this feature, an out-of-state local law enforcement or federal agency could perform a broad search of data from Flock’s entire nationwide network of over 6,000 cameras, including the 20 cameras then-deployed in Palo Alto,” Reifschneider said in the written statement.
Reifschneider said Palo Alto police first learned about the “Nationwide Lookup” feature in December. Flock told Palo Alto police that the “Nationwide Lookup” feature was added in “late 2023” and disabled in October 2025.
Reifschneider said he was told by Flock that no PAPD data (i.e., license plates captured by Palo Alto cameras) was actually obtained by any out-of-state agency or federal agency as a result of any “Nationwide Lookup” search.
“Additionally, PAPD found that no searches had been performed by ICE, Customs and Border Patrol, or the Department of Homeland Security, and that no searches appeared to be associated with immigration enforcement or reproductive rights enforcement,” Reifschneider said.
Still, the city is planning to hire an outside auditor to verify that it is no longer possible to conduct nationwide searches using Palo Alto data.
In addition, the police plan to post logs on their website showing queries made by PAPD and other law enforcement agencies authorized to access the Flock system.
Where’s the city council is on this? Why are they so quiet about this? Why was there so little oversight by council on these cameras?
I’ll bet the family of Nancy Guthrie right now would like to have had a few more Flock cameras in their community.
I doubt it. They’re used for license plate reading not like a CCTV camera that catches everything going on. And the flock cameras are definitely used by ice and other agencies to track people as you can understand from this article. All cities should be abandoning their flock contracts
“unbeknownst to many users including PAPD”
So who in Palo Alto city government signed a contract for a system that had no
controls over who could see the data? A contract that allowed the vendor to make
changes to access without any need to inform customers? If Flock did inform customers
as soon as they implemented this feature, who did they inform in Palo Alto?
Why do they still have jobs? Is the city going to claim “…we just assumed…”
/marc
You should be more worried about your phone tracking you. This is the case of more operator error just like Mt. View
No one has a right to privacy in a public place which includes a public street or sidewalk.
Only law breakers and their supporters have something to fear with flock camera systems.
Federal law is still the law. Don’t like the law? Get it changed.
Until then…..