In a quiet but consequential move, the Burbank City Council locked in another year of Flock Safety license plate cameras when it adopted the city budget in June, setting aside roughly $170,000 for subscriptions, equipment rental, software, and maintenance. The funding keeps a growing network of cameras humming at dozens of locations across the city, a system police say is helping recover stolen cars and generate investigative leads while critics argue it functions as mass surveillance of residents’ daily movements.
According to the Burbank Police Department FAQ, the department currently operates fifty-seven (57) Flock “Falcon” automated license plate reader cameras. The FAQ states that plate reads are stored for 30 days, the system is configured to opt out of nationwide lookup tools, and immigration-related searches are blocked to comply with California law. The guide further explains that access is restricted to authorized personnel, every search is logged with audit trails, and the cameras have already been credited with assisting in dozens of stolen-vehicle recoveries and hundreds of investigations.
Police point to networked data
The Flock Safety transparency portal lists 57 cameras in Burbank and shows more than 1.3 million unique vehicle detections in the last 30 days, along with thousands of “hotlist” hits that trigger human-verified alerts for officers. That network effect, police argue, lets investigators follow suspect vehicles across city borders instead of knocking on doors and canvassing neighborhoods block by block.
Neighbors demand audits as other cities pull back
The council’s decision to allocate roughly $170,000 to keep the program going for another year was reported by Outlook Newspapers. At recent council meetings, opponents pushed for independent, public audits of the system and warned that housing data out of state could make local travel records easier for federal agencies or private entities to access. One resident told the paper “it’s surveillance not security,” while another described the camera grid as “a stalker’s dream.”
Activists frequently cite other municipalities that have backed away from Flock contracts when urging Burbank to demand outside review. Santa Cruz voted in January to terminate its agreement, according to Santa Cruz Local, and Mountain View followed in February, as reported by Peninsula Press.
What comes next
Because the Flock line item is baked into the adopted Fiscal Year 2026-27 budget, the cameras will stay up and running while city staff and the police department continue to emphasize audit logging, supervisory review and system-level restrictions designed to prevent unauthorized searches. The budget hearing packet and related staff reports, which lay out the funding in more detail, were posted ahead of the vote and remain available on the City of Burbank website.
