Local residents are urging city officials to reconsider the use of Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras, citing concerns about privacy, data security and oversight in correspondence submitted ahead of Wednesday’s Public Safety Committee meeting.
“Cities and counties across the country are terminating or significantly changing their Flock contracts in response to concerns about privacy, mass surveillance and the security of data. Pasadena needs to join them,” wrote Jennifer Collins, a District 5 resident, in an email to the committee.
The Public Safety Committee is scheduled to review the Pasadena Police Department’s use of the Flock camera system, including data-sharing practices and policy safeguards, as part of an ongoing evaluation of the technology.
The committee meets at 5 p.m. today in Council Chambers.
Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader system uses fixed cameras to capture images of passing vehicles, recording license plate numbers along with details such as location, time and vehicle characteristics.
The data is stored and can be searched by law enforcement agencies to identify stolen vehicles or track suspects, but critics warn the networked system allows information to be accessed beyond local control.
Concerns have intensified following reports that federal agencies, including those tied to immigration enforcement, have accessed ALPR data in some jurisdictions, raising fears that local surveillance tools could be used to aid deportation efforts despite state-level restrictions.
Collins pointed to several cities that have recently ended their agreements with Flock Safety, including Cambridge, Massachusetts; Flagstaff, Arizona; Mountain View, California; Ithaca, New York; and Eugene and Springfield, Oregon. She noted that some of those decisions followed a 2025 incident in Illinois in which federal authorities accessed license plate reader data in violation of state privacy protections.
In a separate letter, Humaira Afzal raised broader concerns about the system’s ability to protect sensitive data, writing that “the data from the Flock automated license plate readers (ALPRs) can never be sufficiently safe.”
Afzal said that even if police strictly control local access, the department “cannot control the actions of users at the hundreds of other agencies that have access to Pasadena data on the Flock network,” and warned that information could be accessed by out-of-state or federal entities.
She also criticized the department’s transparency, writing that “unfavorable information is never acknowledged or included” in reports or presentations about the program.
Afzal urged the city to pause any expansion of surveillance technology and instead conduct a comprehensive review, including input from privacy experts and civil liberties organizations.
Among her recommendations were requiring a detailed cost-benefit analysis of the cameras’ effectiveness, prohibiting activation of new features without City Council approval, and exploring options to terminate or not renew existing contracts.
In additional emails, Afzal outlined what she described as a pattern of the city approving expanded use of license plate readers despite public concerns, and alleged that past data-sharing practices may have conflicted with state law.
She also raised concerns about the department’s written policies, saying they do not reflect current technology or data collection practices. The correspondence notes that the City has transitioned from mobile cameras to fixed systems that collect data continuously, significantly increasing the volume of information gathered.
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