Last October, the city of Oakland announced it would soon be installing 300 automated license plate readers—cameras that monitor public streets and instantly scan vehicle license plates, running them against “hot lists” for stolen cars or vehicles associated with crimes.
But the rollout of Oakland’s big new vehicle surveillance system has gotten bogged down as officials from the city and California Highway Patrol try to figure out how to pay for and operate the cameras.
Meanwhile, private communities in Oakland are speeding ahead with plans to install similar—albeit smaller—surveillance systems to watch public roads. At least one homeowner group already has cameras up and running and is sharing data with law enforcement agencies.
The move by private homeowners associations follows several years of increased concerns about crime, including broad daylight shootings and brazen robberies in neighborhoods where many residents say they previously felt safe. Proponents of the cameras say they can help police respond faster to criminal activity, solve crimes like burglaries and shootings, and serve as a deterrent.
However, the advent of privately run surveillance camera networks monitoring public roads raises questions. Will wealthier neighborhoods that are able to pay for surveillance technology receive more attention from the police, who will get more alerts and have more evidence for incidents in these areas compared to crimes that happen in lower-income parts of Oakland? What safeguards are being put in place to ensure data collected by these cameras isn’t misused by police or improperly shared? And are license plate scanners even effective at fighting crime?
We examined public records and spoke to leaders of homeowners associations, law enforcement officials, the company that makes the surveillance cameras, and privacy experts to better understand where these new camera systems are being set up, what neighborhoods hope to accomplish, and the concerns some have about the proliferation of license plate readers on the city’s roads.
Closely watching who’s driving through the Lakeshore neighborhood
The Lakeshore Homes Association was established in 1917 to organize and advocate for many of the homes that are located between Mandana Boulevard and I-580. For much of the group’s history, it has focused on maintaining the neighborhood as an attractive place for families to live. According to the association’s website, homeowners must obtain its approval before cutting down trees, remodeling the exterior of their houses, or making other changes to their properties. “Shielded by private restrictions against multiple dwellings as well as by zoning, the area retains its period character up to the present day,” the association’s website explains. “The houses are by and large romantic and picturesque, exhibiting post-World War I taste for country charm and European culture.”
Neighborhood safety is another big priority for the Lakeshore Homes Association. Since February, the nonprofit has installed eight automated license plate readers on the properties of several of its members and it has plans to set up three more.
Jim Donatell, a member of the board of directors of the Lakeshore association, said that between mid-February and mid-March, the cameras captured images of 347,000 license plates and got 259 hits on “hot lists” for vehicles wanted in connection to crimes or missing persons. The nine local law enforcement agencies that have access to the group’s camera data conducted 5,540 searches during that period.
The California Highway Patrol conducted the most searches of the HOA’s camera data: 3,476 over the last month. The CHP has executed two “surge” operations in Oakland since February, resulting in dozens of arrests and hundreds of recovered stolen vehicles. Donatell believes the HOA’s cameras played a role in these operations.
“This doesn’t just help our neighborhood and the city of Oakland, it helps this whole [East Bay] corridor investigate crimes in the spirit of improving public safety,” Donatell told The Oaklandside. “That’s pretty powerful.”
The cameras watching the Lakeshore area’s streets were manufactured by Flock Safety, a Georgia-based company founded in 2017 by Garrett Langley, a technology entrepreneur. Over the past seven years, Flock has expanded to over 5,000 communities across the country and raised hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital. Langley, who created Flock after experiencing a property crime in his Atlanta neighborhood, said he wants his company to help solve 25% of reported crime in the U.S. by the end of 2025.
Lakeshore is one of several Oakland neighborhood associations that recently started looking into license plate reader cameras. The Homeowners of Crestmont Association, which represents residents just west of Redwood Road below Skyline Boulevard, is in talks with Flock to install eight license plate readers to monitor traffic around their 315 homes. The Oakmore Homes Association is discussing installing an ALPR system to keep an eye on roads above Dimond Park between Park Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue. Hillcrest Estates, a homeowner association near Skyline High School, paid for Flock cameras in 2018, but it’s unclear if the group still maintains them. Interest in the cameras appears to have surged last year.
According to public records obtained by The Oaklandside, Flock communicated with at least eight private communities in Oakland last year about setting up cameras.
Holly Beilin, a Flock Safety spokesperson, declined to disclose information about what neighborhoods the company might be doing business with.
“I will say that in terms of Northern California, there are many HOAs that have contracted with Flock,” Beilin said.
It’s difficult to track how many private communities in Oakland are looking into ALPRs. Unlike the city, most HOAs and private associations don’t hold public meetings. Some publish meeting agendas and minutes on their websites that capture important decisions and comments, but others are short on details.
Homeowners associations aren’t subject to public records laws, which means they don’t have to share information about who is using their cameras, what they’re searching for, and what data they’re collecting.
This is worrying to privacy and civil liberty advocates who have been opposing the proliferation of license plate scanning cameras for years. Some groups are concerned about Flock, which advertises how easily law enforcement agencies can use its technology to share data across jurisdictions, including state lines. The ACLU, which has opposed government spy programs and frequently argues for preserving Americans’ privacy rights, has argued that Flock is creating “a nationwide mass-surveillance system out of its customers’ cameras.” One concern is that data collected in Oakland could be accessed by law enforcement in another state, or by federal agencies and used to pursue someone because of their immigration status.
Beilin said Flock has cameras in over 5,000 communities. Among its city customers in the East Bay are Piedmont, San Leandro, Berkeley and Oakland.
In California, Flock lobbied in support of the Organized Retail Theft Grant Program, which was approved by the state legislature in 2022. This $242 million pool of funding for law enforcement agencies is meant to help combat retail theft. At least 16 grantees that received funding were interested in license plate readers, including several that planned to do business with Flock. San Francisco recently started installing 400 Flock Safety cameras that were paid for with a retail theft prevention grant. Oakland failed to apply but OPD leaders were interested in paying for license plate readers, according to public records.
Most of Flock’s contracts are with local governments but homeowner associations are an important customer segment for the company. On its website, Flock shares examples of HOAs across the country that have reportedly reduced crime with the help of its cameras. Private communities can easily book a demo of Flock technology online.
“Flock Safety helps HOAs and law enforcement work together to capture the objective evidence needed to reduce crime rates, improve neighborhood security, and protect home values,” the company’s website states.
Last year, The Intercept reported that over 200 HOAs in the U.S. have purchased Flock license plate readers. The story describes how Flock often works in partnership with police departments to persuade homeowner groups to purchase their own camera systems.
According to public records, Flock contacted OPD last year to address homeowner questions about how the department uses data from private ALPR systems. Donatell shared that an OPD official encouraged him to pay for private Flock cameras.
Saira Hussain, a senior attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for digital privacy rights, said it’s concerning to see HOAs, the police, and technology vendors collaborating to install powerful surveillance systems. Hussain noted that, unlike public agencies, HOAs aren’t bound by a provision in a state law, SB 34, that prohibits California public agencies from sharing ALPR data across state lines. Hussain said this means homeowner groups could end up sharing information with agencies that have an interest in prosecuting people for activities that aren’t illegal in California, such as seeking abortion services.
“It really starts to look like everybody who drives through a certain area is part of this dragnet surveillance, whether or not you’ve done anything wrong,” Hussain said. “Your comings and goings are captured, and that can be very revealing about what people are doing.”
Feeling unsafe, many say cameras will help secure their neighborhoods
Donatell’s family moved to the Crocker Highlands neighborhood in 2011. They initially felt that the neighborhood was safe but things changed during the first couple of years of the COVID pandemic when crime started to spike.
A turning point for Donatell came last May when a 15-month-old girl in a stroller was hit with bullet shrapnel during an attempted robbery on Trestle Glen Road. While attending a community meeting, Donatell said he asked OPD Deputy Chief James Beere what the community could do to help the police. He said Beere told him they should consider paying for license plate reader cameras and Beere specifically recommended Flock Safety. OPD did not respond to requests for comment about this interaction.
Donatell researched several surveillance companies but eventually elected to go with Flock because he felt it was easier to install and administer, and he was impressed by the quality of the technology.
Donatell and a small working group of neighbors presented their findings to the HOA board. At the time, Donatell said the board was reluctant. To gin up support, Donatell’s group created a petition and gathered 550 signatures supporting the payment for Flock cameras using HOA dues. There are roughly 1,000 homes in the Lakeshore HOA. The board approved the plan in September.
To date, there are eight cameras around the boundaries of the Lakeshore HOA. Donatell didn’t share their locations, but The Oaklandside found four located at Grosvenor Place near Park Boulevard; Trestle Glen Avenue near Lakeshore; Alma Place near Park Boulevard; and one on Long Ridge Avenue. The inconspicuous cameras are all placed on private property, usually in resident’s front yards, and positioned so that they have a good view of the road.
The Lakeshore group is currently sharing data from its cameras with seven police departments in Albany, Alameda, Berkeley, Moraga, Piedmont, Richmond, and San Leandro. They’re also providing data to the California Highway Patrol and the San Francisco District Attorney. According to Donatell, the cameras were only active for a few hours before law enforcement agencies started using them in searches. It’s also easy to give agencies access to the system, Donatell said.
“With Flock, it was literally a five-minute interaction,” Donatell said. The HOA is unable to share data with Oakland police because the department doesn’t have an agreement in place with Flock, he said.
Any time a car passes by one of the cameras, the device senses the vehicle’s motion and takes a picture. Flock’s cameras automatically read the license plate and can identify unique details from the front or back of a vehicle, including the make and model, the vehicle’s color, and whether there are bumper stickers, among other identifiers.
If the license plate belongs to a car that the police are searching for, it produces a hit on a so-called “hot list.” This is a changing catalog of vehicles wanted in connection with various crimes, missing children, or missing adults. Hot lists are generated by law enforcement, not the HOA. Data about what vehicles drove on a road is retained in Flock’s system for 30 days, which is the standard retention period Flock offers communities. Police are immediately notified about hot list hits, and can search camera data when investigating crimes.
Donatell said the HOA’s system gets updates about hot list hits, but not details about the individual vehicles. Donatell and one other association board member can search the footage for vehicles but can’t see whether a car is on a hot list. Donatell can also check the system to see when a law enforcement agency included the HOA’s cameras in a search. Donatell can see the time and date of the searches but doesn’t have access to what vehicle an agency is looking for or why the search is taking place.
Flock offers customers a transparency portal—a website where people can see how many cameras are in a city, what information they’re collecting, what agencies have access to the plate readers, how long images are stored, and more. Some also include reports that show what kind of searches were conducted in the system for a given period.
The Lakeshore HOA doesn’t have a portal. Donatell said the association gives its members updates about the cameras, but he’s potentially interested in seeing if Flock can create some kind of transparency page for the neighborhood’s camera network.
Residents in the Lakeshore HOA have the option of excluding their vehicle’s license plates from their system so that they aren’t logged each time they drive by a camera. This means their license plates won’t be found during any search of the database by law enforcement. That option doesn’t exist for non-HOA members.
Donatell acknowledged that a small number of people in the HOA were initially uncomfortable with the idea of cameras, and he could see the potential privacy concerns. But he emphasized that most of the community eventually came around to supporting them. He noted that Berkeley—“arguably one of the most liberal cities in the U.S.”—decided to pay for Flock ALPRs around the time the HOA was discussing Flock cameras.
“I got to tell you, people were comfortable,” Donatell said. “They were just saying, ‘I’m tired of getting my windows bashed, tired of my cars getting stolen, tired of people getting guns held to their heads.”
Other Oakland communities are investing in street cameras
According to city records obtained by The Oaklandside, a community safety representative for Flock Safety emailed a colleague last June to inform them that he was working with several groups in Oakland that were considering Flock. These included Piedmont Pines, Oakmore, Crestmont, Chinatown, Montclair, Lakeshore, Trestle Glen, and Glen Highlands.
We connected with several of these groups and learned that while some have abandoned the idea of contracting with Flock, others are moving forward.
One of those communities, the Homeowners of Crestmont Association, wants to purchase eight ALPR cameras. The association’s board became interested in Flock after receiving a growing number of reports from residents about burglaries, thefts, and abandoned vehicles, according to records on the Crestmont website.
Some residents were skeptical about the decision to pay for cameras.
Dominic Reo, who indicated he was “neutral” on whether or not to buy the cameras, said in a written comment to the association board last November that Flock representatives pitched the Crestmont community on surveillance products in previous years. According to Reo, the association turned them down due to cost and the perception that law enforcement agencies aren’t willing to use the data to make arrests and prosecutions. Reo also argued that the deterrence effect of the cameras may be limited if criminals are confident that law enforcement agencies won’t use the cameras to pursue cases.
“If the situation were to change in the future and the use of the data by OPD and the DA would actually lead to the outcomes we want we can always put them in, but are we wasting our money and effort doing it now?” Reo wrote. “Why not monitor other neighborhoods to see what they really get out of it before spending that much money.”
Some Crestmont residents outright opposed Flock Safety cameras.
“Where is the evidence additional cameras increase safety?” Hilary Newman said in another comment to the association board. “I’m also concerned that cameras can lead to harassment of innocent visitors and neighbors, especially those of color.”
Unlike the Lakeshore Homeowners Association, Crestmont wants to pay for a set of cameras that can be donated to the city of Oakland. Keith Uriarte, a board member of the Crestmont association, told The Oaklandside this would give OPD the ability to place cameras on public property, like street corners, and let the department exercise “real time” surveillance.
“Instead of the city having 300 cameras, they would have 308,” Uriarte said, referring to the city’s announcement last October that it will use state funding to purchase hundreds of cameras to monitor the roads. “The only difference would be the funding source.”
Flock Safety rejected Crestmont’s proposal in December. A representative told Uriarte that the company can’t alter the agreement it already has with the city of Oakland for 300 cameras. Further complicating matters, the state is in talks with Oakland to give control of these 300 cameras to the California Highway Patrol. Uriarte said he’s frustrated with Flock, but insists his community will find a way to give some cameras to the city.
“We’re not giving up, we’re going to make it happen,” Uriarte said.
In April 2023, the board of the Oakmore Homes Association discussed a proposed pilot project to install three automated license plate readers around the neighborhood, according to the group’s board meeting minutes. The proposal envisioned eventually expanding coverage “beyond the immediate OHA geographical area as well as provide additional benefit to the larger neighborhood.”
The impetus was “increasingly common and increasingly violent” crime in Oakland, according to the association’s meeting minutes. The board approved the creation of a new organization to raise funds for the camera pilot program. In December, members of the community created a nonprofit called the Safer Oakmore Association, according to state records.
In February, the Oakmore board discussed the Safer Oakmore Association’s application for a waiver from the board to install an automated license plate reader system on Leimert Boulevard and on Bridgeview Drive, one of the main entry points into Oakmore.
Oakmore representatives refused to speak with The Oaklandside, saying it would be premature to comment on the cameras.
Other communities, like Piedmont Pines Neighborhood Association, wanted to pay for Flock’s automated license plate readers but balked at the price.
“That’s what drove us from the bargaining table,” said Robbie Neely, executive director of Piedmont Pines. She added that her association is not an HOA, so it relies on voluntary dues.
“We don’t have the kind of bank account that would support a Flock system, but we were very impressed with what it could do,” Neely said.
Do license plate reader cameras help fight crime?
Civil liberties groups like the ACLU have said they don’t necessarily object to cameras being used to check license plates against lists of stolen cars, for AMBER alerts, or toll collections, provided these systems don’t target low-income communities and communities of color or result in abusive invasions of people’s privacy and civil rights. But these groups have raised concerns about surveillance companies like Flock Safety that want to build centralized databases for ALPR data, which includes information collected from private surveillance systems such as homeowner associations.
In 2022, the ACLU published an essay that accused Flock of “building a form of mass surveillance unlike any seen before in American life.” The ACLU noted that as companies like Flock deploy denser networks of ALPRs, it becomes feasible for law enforcement agencies to create a comprehensive record of an individual’s daily activities. That includes sensitive information like where a person lives, where they worship, and who they’re romantically involved with.
Besides concerns about how the cameras might erode people’s privacy rights, questions have been raised about just how effective ALPR is at solving crime.
“Oakland residents should be skeptical—when in the absence of evidence that this is going to solve or meaningfully help Oakland’s public safety issues—we’re being asked to accept more of the same surveillance,” Matt Cagle, an ACLU of Northern California attorney, told The Oaklandside.
Whether the cameras are effective crime-fighting tools has been the subject of intense debates among researchers.
A recent study produced by two Texas academics and two Flock Safety researchers estimated that 10% of reported crimes are solved using Flock technology. On its website, the company has made similar claims about dramatic crime reductions in communities that installed its cameras.
But a recent investigative report from Forbes found that Flock has misrepresented the effectiveness of its cameras at slashing crime. The company claimed on its website that the Los Angeles suburb of San Marino saw a 70% decrease in all crimes after installing an ALPR system. But Forbes revealed that burglaries—the most common crime in the town—actually increased in following years, while other serious crimes mostly stayed flat. The story reported that Flock cherry-picked data about the performance of its cameras in Dayton, Ohio, Fort Worth, Texas, and Lexington, Kentucky. Flock argued that its case studies are meant to show how various communities use ALPR technology to clear more criminal cases. Law enforcement officials in various cities have praised the cameras as helpful at tracking and catching suspects.
Flock Safety representative Holly Beilin said crime data is variable, and noted that it’s difficult to get consistent information across different jurisdictions.
Criminal justice academics who spoke with Forbes said the Texas-Flock Safety research paper “borders on ludicrous” and were skeptical it would pass peer review.
Last February, the ACLU published a post explaining how residents can stop their local police departments from introducing Flock technology into their communities. One of the reasons cited was how easily law enforcement agencies can access data in different jurisdictions through Flock’s network.
Beilin told The Oaklandside that the company abides by state laws that govern how its devices can be used, including the sharing of data. California law prohibits law enforcement agencies from sharing ALPR data with non-California entities, such as the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In October, Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a reminder to law enforcement agencies across the state about these restrictions.
“Flock Safety always creates its devices so our customers in any specific state or jurisdiction can follow the appropriate laws they’re subject to,” Beilin said.
California law enforcement agencies have repeatedly defied state law and shared ALPR data with non-California agencies. Last May, the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation reported that 71 California law enforcement agencies in 22 counties were sharing ALPR data with outside agencies in violation of a law meant to protect abortion seekers from prosecution. Several were in the Bay Area but none in Alameda County.
Some of the agencies in this report shared data collected via Flock Safety cameras. For example, the Vallejo Police Department employs a Flock ALPR system that can record vehicles at 74 locations throughout the city, including near a Planned Parenthood clinic. Last year the city’s Surveillance Advisory Board discovered that Vallejo police shared data from those cameras with law enforcement agencies in Arizona, Kansas, Texas, and some federal agencies. After this came out, the department said it removed access to the system for out-of-state departments. However, the Vallejo Sun reported that two federal agencies remained on the list, which experts said violated state law.
There are similar examples elsewhere in the Bay Area. The Oakley Police Department in Contra Costa County, which has five Flock cameras, is currently sharing ALPR data with the New York State Police, Queen Creek Police Department in Arizona, US Postal Inspection Service, Houston Police Department in Texas, and Zionsville Police Department in Indiana. The Hercules Police Department has 25 Flock cameras, and in February was sharing data with law enforcement agencies in Arizona, Louisiana, Texas, Utah, Washington, a regional intelligence center that shares data with several midwestern states. As of March, Hercules appears to have removed access for most non-California agencies but is still sharing with the midwestern regional intelligence center and the Postal Service.
The provision of the state law that prohibits California law enforcement departments from sharing data with outside agencies doesn’t apply to homeowner associations, said Saira Hussain, the EFF attorney.
“They could share (data) with out-of-state agencies, including those in jurisdictions that have very different laws than California, such as those that may be seeking to prosecute people who are seeking reproductive services,” Hussain said.
Flock spokesperson Connor Metz denied that Flock data could be shared with out of state law enforcement.
Asked whether Flock’s contracts with California homeowner associations prohibit the sharing of data with non-California agencies, Metz said, “When an HOA elects to share with a law enforcement agency, they consent for their Flock account manager to share their camera access directly with a local law enforcement agency responsible for their jurisdiction. That law enforcement agency also must have a signed contract with Flock. Other agencies who the HOA has not specifically consented to share data with cannot access the data from those cameras.”
Donatell, head of Lakeshore’s homeowner association, was emphatic that his group would not share data with out-of-state agencies, noting that their privacy policy aligns with the city’s rules that were approved by Oakland’s privacy advisory board.
Brian Hofer, the chair of Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission, said communities, primarily in the Oakland hills, started installing private camera networks back in 2014 and 2015. He wasn’t aware of any abuses, but he noted that this rollout occurred with “zero transparency.”
Noting that he’s philosophically opposed to mass surveillance, Hofer credited the HOAs with approaching cameras with reasonable intentions.
“Most of these guys who have talked to me from various HOAs understand the concerns, and they aren’t looking to be weird or do something mischievous,” Hofer said. “They really are trying to essentially add resources to a police department, and I respect that they’re trying to take privacy guidelines seriously.”
Donatell said he has talked to other private communities in Oakland that want to adopt ALPR systems, and he’s received referrals from city councilmembers.
“Think about organizing yourselves like we did,” Donatell said. “Let’s cover the city with this technology as best we can to support proper law and order.”
This story was updated Apr. 5, 2024 to include comments from a Flock Safety spokesperson about the company data sharing with law enforcement.
