Indivisible Berkeley

Flock Circumvents Police Department Settings

A week ago, the City of Ventura reported that out-of-state agencies had access to data collected by the city’s Flock cameras:

In early February 2026 and following reports that vendor-related errors had occurred with other California agencies, VPD (Ventura Police Department) initiated a comprehensive 90-day audit of its Flock Safety ALPR system. This audit showed internal settings to California-only access and no federal or out-of-state access to local data. Over the past week, Ventura County agencies discovered data security issues prompting VPD to initiate an access audit of the past year, revealing that although VPD’s settings were set to California-only access, a vendor [Flock]-enabled “nationwide query” function allowed out-of-state agencies to query Ventura’s data. These queries were completed without the Department’s knowledge or authorization.

This report from Ventura follows revelations from Mountain View earlier this year, based on excellent local reporting, that hundreds of out-of-state agencies had access to data from Flock cameras in the city. According to the City of Mountain View, this data sharing was “enabled without MVPD’s permission or knowledge.” Mountain View has since turned off their Flock cameras, joining cities around California and the country in rejecting Flock.

Given the repeated failure of Flock to respect the data sharing settings of California-based jurisdictions, how can Berkeley trust Flock to operate within contractual bounds? Repeated contract violations by Flock have already resulted in legal exposure of police departments around the state:

  • Oakland Police Department was sued in November 2025 for sharing Flock data with out-of-state agencies, against state law
  • San Jose was sued in November 2025 for enabling 261,000 warrantless searches based on Flock data
  • El Cajon in San Diego County was sued in October 2025 by the state government for permitting searches of Flock data on behalf of out-of-state agencies

Can Berkeley, which is facing a $30 million deficit, afford litigation resulting from Flock’s malfeasance? How can Berkeley reasonably expect to uphold its commitment as a sanctuary city when Flock has permitted unauthorized access to its network of cameras by ICE agents collaborating with out-of-state police?

We say: No to Flock!