Indivisible Berkeley

Red light cameras only took pictures of people who broke the law, whereas ALPRs CONTINUOUSLY collect and log all license plate data and vehicle characteristics in cloud-based databases. Flock then puts OUR data behind paywalls and sells subscriptions to 5,000+ other law enforcement agencies to access.

An analogy: How comfortable would you be if Netflix recorded you in public places without you knowing, then uploads the recordings of you on its platform, so its subscribers can search those recordings with keywords?

Watch this video to better understand how Flock works.

The UC Berkeley Criminal Law and Justice Center (CLJC) conducted an independent review of the proposed Drone as First Responder program. The CLJC recommended to reject the current proposal due to unsupported claims about public safety benefits and unmitigated constitutional and financial risks.

Crime data from Berkeley also show that Flock’s deployment has not significantly decreased crimes.

Take the city of Mountain View as an example: Between August 2024 – December 2025, the Mountain View Police Department performed about 25,000 searches while outside agencies performed over 3,000,000 searches during that same period. In other words, only 0.8% of the searches were done locally and 99.2% were done by outside agencies. All the searches were unauthorized because Mountain View made a specific policy requiring written approval for access to its data and a “nationwide” search setting was turned on without permission.

In late February, Mountain View City Council voted to terminate its relationship with Flock.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reported how Flock data has been used to help ICE carry out its abusive immigration enforcement programs.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) found patterns of Flock data being used to surveil protesters and enable biased policing.

If we opposed what ICE has been doing to terrorize other cities, we should not be spending our tax dollars to support Flock, which enables ICE to carry out its immigration programs.

The BPD has claimed its contract language will prevent access by federal law enforcement agencies, however, the contract includes a clause that Flock may disclose camera footage to “government officials” with or without a warrant: 

“… if Flock has a good faith belief that such access, use, preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with a legal process… or otherwise address security, privacy, fraud or technical issues, or emergency situations.”

And if Flock does not comply willingly with a federal government request or warrant, there is a LEGAL pathway for federal government to compel secret access to any data (including images) collected by BPD and Flock by using a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant.

Here’s a deep dive on how a FISA warrant can be used against a sanctuary city like Berkeley:

Federal agencies can obtain a legal secret warrant signed by a FISA court judge. The current FISA court judges have all been appointed by Supreme Court Justice John Roberts.

A FISA warrant is shown only to the person(s) who can provide the desired information, such an employee of Flock. Those who see the warrant can be convicted of a federal offense and go to prison if they tell anybody about the warrant or what information was requested or provided.

A FISA warrant can be broad, for instance, “all images from fixed cameras” or “community video streams” (cameras monitoring people in a public place).

FISA was designed to target foreign powers and terrorist groups. Trump’s administration had declared undocumented immigrants to be members of terrorist groups.

Annual public reports of numbers (but not content of warrants) show there were 356 warrants executed in 2024 – before Trump was elected. Counts for 2025 are not available.

The Trump administration has taken steps to streamline the process for FISA warrants – see this letter on the FISA website.

Contract language presented to the Berkeley City Council last fall contained a provision to cover the possibility of Flock providing data without notifying the City.

“If Flock receives a legal request or demand (including subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process) seeking access to Footage or other Customer Data, Flock shall, to the extent legally permitted, promptly notify Customer of such request and obtain the written consent of Customer prior to disclosing any such Footage or Customer Data.”

This was presented as protection for Berkeley’s data (Sec.5.3), but contracts do not include provisions for events that cannot happen. This paragraph spelled out that Berkeley will not be notified or allowed to deny a FISA request, because that will not be legally permitted.

Secret FISA warrants are not a myth that cannot happen. FISA warrants are the perfect tool for the Trump administration to use to target sanctuary cities like Berkeley.

One of Flock’s primary selling points IS to enable law enforcement agencies to search data across jurisdictions. In an example where their system was weaponized against reproductive rights, a single search accessed 83,000 cameras spanning almost the entire country.

Concerns about this surveillance led Ring to cancel a data-sharing deal with Flock after Ring’s infamous 2026 super bowl commercial, “… a world where biometric identification could be unleashed from consumer devices to identify, track, and locate ANYTHING — human, pet, and otherwise.”

The company is not grounded in thoughtful data privacy and security governance and practices, but rather, driven by the profit motives of a long list of venture capital companies. Since its founding, Flock has shifted aggressively towards monopolizing the market with law enforcement agencies across the country.

I am a Berkeley resident from district <X>. I am calling to oppose the proposal for the Berkeley Police Department to expand its contract with Flock. Cities across the Bay Area — including Richmond, Santa Cruz, and Mountain View — have already paused the use of Flock or even cut ties after learning that license plate reader data was being illegally shared with law enforcement agencies outside of their jurisdictions. I am also concerned that expanding our Flock contract will put our vulnerable community members more at risk. I urge the council member to stand on the right side of this issue and reject this contract extension. Thank you.

Send your email to council@berkeleyca.gov, which will go directly to the Mayor, each individual Councilmember, and the City Clerk for inclusion in the public record.

Dear Berkeley City Council members,

I am writing to urge you to oppose any expansion of our city’s contract with Flock, given mounting evidence that the company’s privacy practices poses serious risks to our vulnerable residents and civil liberties.

Flock Safety markets itself as a security company, but in reality it operates as a private data broker. Their business model is simple: get police departments to pay for their equipment to monitor everyone like criminals, then monetize OUR data by selling paywall access to other jurisdictions. Worse still, their unregulated private surveillance network is so poorly secured that independent researchers have demonstrated it can be compromised in minutes.

At a time when our community has expressed a commitment to protecting immigrants and other vulnerable residents from federal overreach, continuing to invest in surveillance technologies that can so easily be weaponized against those same neighbors is not aligned with Berkeley’s values.

I urge you to opposed this contract expansion and instead prioritize privacy, immigrant safety, and civil liberties in our city.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[Your City Council District]