"While the Flock Safety pilot program demonstrated clear value in enhancing our ability to protect our community and help us solve crimes, I personally no longer have confidence in this particular vendor. - Police Chief Mike Canfield in a letter to the community regarding the decision to shut down the city's 30 Flock cameras."
"One data breach was from August to November 2024, just after Mountain View's first license-plate reading camera was installed. During that time, a national lookup setting was turned on in Mountain View's system, without the city's knowledge, and several federal agencies searched data from the one camera the city had installed at the time."
"California law bans sharing data from automated license plate readers with federal agencies and those outside of the state. Flock Safety disabled the national lookup feature for all California agencies in March 2025."
Mountain View's city council voted to terminate its agreement with Flock Safety, an automated license plate reader company, following data breaches involving unauthorized access by federal and state agencies. Police Chief Mike Canfield shut down the city's 30 Flock cameras after discovering security issues. A data breach occurred from August to November 2024 when a national lookup setting was activated without the city's knowledge, allowing federal agencies including ATF offices and Air Force bases to access camera data. Flock could not determine how the setting was enabled or disabled. California law prohibits sharing license plate reader data with federal agencies and out-of-state entities. Residents from Mountain View and nearby communities urged council to cancel the contract and avoid replacing the cameras with another company's system.
#license-plate-readers #data-privacy #government-surveillance #unauthorized-data-access #municipal-policy
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