San Diego's Budget and Government Efficiency Committee meets Wednesday to consider a resolution that would terminate the city's contract with Flock Safety, the company behind more than 500 license plate reading cameras scattered across the city. The proposal, titled Rescind ALPR Use Policy, comes just over a week after Councilmember Stephen Whitburn reversed his longtime support for the surveillance technology, a shift that could finally give opponents the votes they need to end the program.
A Swing Vote Changes Course
Whitburn announced his new position at a press conference last Tuesday, telling reporters he had turned against Flock after previously backing it, according to Voice of San Diego. He had been one of five councilmembers who voted down a proposal to cancel the Flock contract during June budget hearings, and his reversal now creates a simple majority on the council that could potentially cancel the deal, per the same outlet. Whitburn said Flock cameras lose their value as a public safety tool if they make large numbers of San Diegans feel unsafe, and he pointed specifically to concerns that federal immigration enforcement could tap into the data the cameras collect, according to seed reporting from Times of San Diego.
Councilmember Henry Foster III proposed the resolution, which calls for terminating the city's contract with Flock Safety, deleting all data the department has stored, and ending the San Diego Police Department's current ALPR use policy altogether, Times of San Diego reports. Any future vendor would need to go through a full review by the city's privacy advisory board and win council approval before cameras could return. The resolution also cites the wrongful arrest of two men as a reason to sever ties with Flock; those men are now suing the city, according to the outlet. Separately, the resolution points to a data breach that allowed other agencies to access the police department's network.
The June Vote That Fell Short
The committee vote would reopen a fight that played out during this year's budget season. In June, four councilmembers — Kent Lee, Henry Foster, Vivian Moreno and Sean Elo-Rivera — voted to cancel the Flock contract, while Marni von Wilpert, Whitburn, Raul Campillo, Jennifer Campbell and Joe LaCava voted to keep it, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. Supporters of cancellation argued at the time that license plate readers do more harm than good by putting residents under surveillance and creating data that could be used for immigration enforcement, the paper reported. Canceling the $2 million contract would have freed up enough money to fully reverse Mayor Todd Gloria's proposed cuts to hours at nine libraries and 24 recreation centers, according to the Union-Tribune.
Whitburn's flip means that if the four original supporters of cancellation hold their positions, the council would now have the votes to end the contract. Gloria has continued to support the technology and may veto the resolution if it passes, Times of San Diego reports. The mayor has said automated license plate readers have assisted in nearly 900 criminal investigations and helped recover more than $8.7 million in stolen property, according to NBC 7 San Diego. Gloria has also said public safety and privacy can coexist and that technology providers should be held accountable, per Times of San Diego.
Police Chief Defends the Cameras
San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl has separately said the technology helped the department solve more than 900 cases, according to Voice of San Diego, a figure NBC 7 San Diego also reported him citing. Wahl told the station that SDPD has never shared ALPR data for immigration purposes, not once. The city currently bars sharing Flock data with federal immigration officials, Voice of San Diego notes, and police retain location and identifying information gathered by the cameras for 30 days before it is purged.
That retention window sits at the center of a lawsuit the ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties filed against the city on September 30. The organization claims Flock's technology violates the California Constitution's right to privacy and has asked a court to compel San Diego to terminate its contract, according to Times of San Diego. In its own press release, the ACLU said SDPD conducted nearly a quarter million retrospective searches of its ALPR database in the past year, and warned that the data collected over time can reveal religious practices, medical visits, political activities, personal relationships and daily routines.
Other Cities Have Already Pulled the Plug
San Diego would not be the first California city to walk away from Flock. El Cerrito's City Council voted 3-2 against renewing its own Flock contract earlier this year and turned its cameras off on June 7, according to Contra Costa News. That city had been weighing a three-year renewal priced at $315,000, or a one-year deal at $105,000. Councilmember Rebecca Saltzman said her biggest worry was that the federal government could access the data, while Councilmember Lisa Motoyama said she simply did not trust Flock's cloud storage to keep the information safe, the outlet reported.
Even if Wednesday's committee discussion does not resolve the matter, it is not likely to be the council's last word on Flock this year. The city's annual surveillance report is expected to come before the public safety committee in mid-November, with the full council potentially taking it up the following month — another point at which the contract's fate could be decided, according to Voice of San Diego. For now, San Diego's relationship with the cameras that have watched its streets for years hangs on whether Wednesday's resolution can hold together the fragile majority Whitburn's reversal created.
