Across the state, communities are taking down Flock Safety cameras. Could Shasta be next?

The political winds around automated license plate reader cameras are shifting in Shasta County. The change comes just months after county officials approved an expansion of Flock Safety’s network of AI-powered cameras, which photograph passing vehicles and make them searchable by license plate and other identifying features. 

Similar cameras were first acquired by the Anderson and Redding police departments in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Last November, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors followed suit, approving a $550,000 contract for the sheriff to install 24 Flock cameras across unincorporated parts of Shasta using Zogg Fire settlement funds. 

While public skepticism around automated license plate readers has been simmering for years, it was the sheriff’s contract with Flock Safety — a company which has faced mounting controversy both for sharing data with federal agencies and for documented misuse cases — that has brought the issue to the center of local online debate. 

The growing public backlash coincides with a shift in the positions of both Shasta County Supervisor Kevin Crye and Anderson City Council member Darin Hale. Both have reversed their previous stances on automated license plate readers — also known as ALPRs — and are now calling for the cameras in their respective jurisdictions to be taken down. 

The two local leaders are far from alone in reconsidering the technology. Dozens of cities across the state — including Mountain View, Santa Cruz and Los Altos — are cancelling their contracts with Flock due to data sharing concerns. With an estimated 18,000 ALPR cameras, California has the highest count of any state, in part because of its size. This month, the Los Angeles Police Department paused its use of Flock cameras and is renegotiating its contract to clarify questions about data ownership and security.

Neither the Shasta County Board of Supervisors nor the Anderson City Council has taken formal steps to remove existing cameras. But several community members Shasta Scout spoke with echoed Crye and Hale’s concerns, saying the investigative benefits of the cameras aren’t worth the potential erosion of privacy, or the risk that vehicle data could ultimately be accessed by agencies involved in federal immigration enforcement or reproductive health investigations.

Shasta Scout reached out to the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office over the span of several weeks, but did not receive a response to repeated requests for comment. APD did not respond to requests for comment either, but the agency did quickly respond to a public records request to provide its contract with Flock.

How do ALPRs work, and why do members of the community want them taken down?

Modern ALPR systems record vehicle plate numbers, make, model, color and other identifying features as they pass in front of cameras. This data, which includes photographs of the vehicle, is then uploaded to a central server, allowing law enforcement agencies to identify and locate suspect vehicles by using search terms for unique identifiers such as roof racks or bumper stickers.  

Redding police told Shasta Scout last year that the exact locations of ALPR cameras could not be shared, since the release of that information could “jeopardize current or future cases.” A more recent PRA request for the locations of the sheriff’s county-wide cameras is still pending a response. 

Flock is the country’s largest provider of ALPRs. The company allows participating agencies to share camera data with other law enforcement agencies, creating a broader searchable database. In California, this practice is limited by SB 34, which prevents law enforcement from sharing data with agencies outside the state — including the federal government. 

Still, a 2025 CalMatters investigation found that 71 California law enforcement agencies had violated the state’s law, with departments in Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange County found to have searched ALPR systems on behalf of two federal agencies: Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

At a community listening meeting held in Shasta last October, Sheriff Michael Johnson reassured the public that his office would comply with SB 34, saying out-of-state agencies would not be allowed to make “any inquiries regarding immigration or reproductive health.” 

Shasta Scout is still awaiting public records to back his claim. But reporting on Redding’s data sharing practices last year found the department in compliance with SB 34. That’s in contrast to RPD’s 2022 data, which documented the agency sharing ALPR data with five other states as well as with Customs and Border Patrol. 

Locally, hundreds of community members have taken to social media platforms to share their distrust of ALPR technology, though public opinion is mixed on the constitutionality of mass vehicle surveillance. One community member has even organized a crowdsourced county map of all ALPR cameras in Shasta, while others have allegedly taken to vandalizing the cameras, something that could incur criminal penalties. 

As national debate over AI-powered surveillance intensifies, the sheriff’s office has made several posts on Facebook highlighting the crimes that have been solved with assistance from the cameras since their installation in January. In one video, Lieutenant Kody Bodner celebrated the success of the cameras, pointing to several cases where the technology assisted arrests. He said the cameras are especially helpful for identifying the direction of travel of suspect vehicles.  

A Flock spokesperson also emphasized local criminal justice success, telling a reporter that within Shasta’s first six weeks of use alone, the cameras supported 14 felony arrests, four stolen vehicle recoveries and the location of two seniors whose disappearances had resulted in Silver Alerts. Flock says that in communities where the cameras are deployed, roughly 1 in 5 cases cleared by law enforcement are connected to use of the technology.

That doesn’t reassure some community members, several of whom told Shasta Scout they’re worried about how ALPR data could ultimately be shared or accessed. For Redding resident and business intelligence developer David Wasko, the issue is not the cameras themselves, it’s the database they feed into. He’s worried that Flock does not require multi-factor authentication — though the company says it’s the default — and pointed to several cases where white hat hackers have gained access to the cameras. 

When Wasko learned that RPD was considering a Flock contract of its own last year — in addition to the 42 cameras the city already operates with ALPR vendor Vigilant Solutions — he petitioned against the effort, even speaking at a city council meeting. RPD ultimately decided not to pursue the new Flock contract due to funding limitations, according to Redding police Captain Regan Ortega. 

Nate Grotberg, a Shasta resident who works as an AI analyst at Maas Energy Works, echoed Wasko’s concerns. For him, transparency is paramount — he thinks the locations of ALPRs should be made public, as well as information on how they’re configured, where data is stored and how it’s encrypted. 

As someone whose work focuses on helping businesses responsibly adopt artificial intelligence, Grotberg also thinks more training is needed for law enforcement officers on how to properly use and search with the technology. The ALPR training bulletin used by the sheriff’s office, which Shasta Scout obtained via a public records request, does require employees to complete an online training with Flock before gaining access to the system. 

Wasko and Grotberg also both questioned whether the company’s retention limits are meaningful in practice. While the company claims that data is automatically deleted after 30 days by default, law enforcement agencies can still download that data and retain it as digital evidence under their own evidence retention policies. In fact, the sheriff’s office instructs officers to do as much in its training bulletin, saying, “for the data to be retained for longer than 30 days, the data shall be downloaded as an item of evidence and transferred to Evidence.com as you would any other digital evidence related to a case report.”

Many interviewees also pointed to documented cases of misuse in other jurisdictions, namely officers using ALPR systems to stalk and harass individuals. A nonprofit public interest law firm, Institute for Justice, has identified at least 26 cases nationwide of officers abusing ALPR data to “keep tabs” on romantic interests, including ex-partners.   

The sheriff acknowledged in last year’s community listening meeting that he understands why the public might fear the possibility of misuse, saying he shares the same concerns. But, he added, “every entity out there has been misused [or] violated in some way or another,” promising the public that if such an incident were to occur in Shasta County, “there will be consequences.”

The sheriff’s office doesn’t require the establishment of reasonable suspicion or probable cause before using the system. But staff are required to provide “sufficient information” that validates an employee’s use of the system — such as the nature of the crime, if the vehicle is a suspect or witness vehicle and the case number if applicable.

For Nick Hidalgo, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, this isn’t enough. The ACLU is pushing for policies that require law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before searching ALPR databases, arguing that warrantless searches violate the Fourth Amendment. It’s why they’re suing the city of San Jose, which has deployed nearly 500 ALPR cameras and retains data for up to a year. 

“Law enforcement will always be able to point to one or two examples where the technology helped him solve a case,” Hidalgo said. “But what we need to balance that against is the cost to our privacy.”

Grotberg added that since the technology is so new, he believes “it doesn’t hurt us to wait it out.” It’s what he finds himself telling his company every day as an AI analyst. “There’s no reason for us to be on the bleeding edge of this technology.” 

He was among the community members who shared during their interviews how few in their circles are aware of the technology. Grotberg says he often informs his colleagues about the cameras, attributing their unawareness to “a lack of transparency and a lack of advertising” on the part of the government.

What could be next for the county?

Hale, who was not yet on Anderson City Council when that body voted to approve the installation of two Flock cameras in 2019, says he initially supported the cameras, thinking they would help APD solve crimes. Since then, the city has steadily acquired 12 cameras, all before Hale took office — and his opinion has flipped. 

In an interview with a reporter, Hale said he wants Anderson to “pump the brakes” and wait for legislation to catch up, as organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and ACLU challenge ALPR programs in court. He’s been spreading the word about the potential risks of ALPRs on social media, and is hoping he will inspire community members to use their own voices to “apply pressure,” before he asks the council to consider removing Anderson’s cameras. 

APD’s original contract with Flock says it would cost $500 per camera for removal, which is still cheaper than the annual subscription cost of each camera — about $2000 to $3000.

Hale has not mentioned the issue to other Anderson City Council members — he said he’s waiting for more public momentum to build, fearing that he lacks the support to convince the council that the cameras should be removed. Crye shared similar worries on a July 5 episode of his radio show, saying he isn’t sure he has the “two other votes to cancel them.”

Crye, who voted to approve the sheriff’s contract with Flock Safety last fall, said on his show that he now wants to “roll back that vote” after seeing evidence of abuse and “nefarious activities.” But the supervisor has yet to bring a formal motion to the board calling for termination of the program and did not respond to a request for comment.

While the sheriff’s contract with Flock has an initial five-year term, the agreement is slated to automatically renew for another two — that’s unless either party gives a notice of non-renewal at least 30 days before the term’s end. Terminating the contract mid-term might be complex and expensive. Unlike APD’s contract, the agreement does not provide a clean, penalty-free exit, outlining paths for termination only under limited circumstances such as material breach or non-appropriation of funds.

Supervisor Chris Kelstrom indicated in text to Shasta Scout that his support for ALPRs has not changed, adding that community members concerned with being tracked “should throw away their cell phones.” Supervisors Matt Plummer, Allen Long and Corkey Harmon either declined or did not respond to similar requests for comment on whether they continue to support the technology, which they all voted for last year.

Like Hale, ACLU attorney Hidalgo emphasized that change must begin among the community. During an interview, he urged residents to show up at local meetings, sharing the ACLU’s ample materials and templates for citizens.

“We really urge communities to push back against this, demand accountability, demand transparency and demand limitations on these technologies,” Hidalgo said, “to the extent that they need them at all in order to protect their rights.”

Maya Nelson is a student at Brown University. She’s reporting for Shasta Scout as a 2026 summer intern with support from the Nonprofit Newsroom Internship Program — created by The Scripps Howard Fund and the Institute for Nonprofit News.

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