Residents across Orange County are increasingly speaking out against the proliferation of automated license plate readers on street corners in the region, raising concerns the cameras are an invasion of privacy.
Critics also worry the cameras could be used to track innocent residents and the data and footage collected could be shared with federal agencies as the county continues to reel from deportation sweeps that kicked up last year.
Tanya Navarro, the organizing director for Chispa, said the cameras won’t keep residents of OC’s only Sanctuary City safe.
“Our community never wanted this. When they approved this technology, they justified it by claiming it would make us safer from criminals. That’s how entire communities become criminalized. When I look at Santa Ana, I don’t see a city full of criminals. I don’t see a city full of suspects,” she said at a news conference last week.
“We hear lots of talks of abuses when it comes to Flock, but it’s already an abuse to collect this data and store it, especially in this current political climate, where dissent is increasingly criminalized and discrimination by ICE can mean a death sentence.”
Elected politicians and police officials argue the cameras are an important tool necessary for officers to solve crimes with some elected leaders saying residents already use technology like smartphones and ring cameras that can track people’s whereabouts and conversations.
Santa Ana Councilman Phil Bacerra said there are safeguards in place in the contract for the cameras, the cameras will help keep people safe and is something that some residents have called for.
“Here’s a chance for police that are already stretched thin when it comes to the actual human resources aspect to leverage the technology to be able to respond better,” said Bacerra at the May 6 2025 council meeting when officials narrowly approved an up to $211,000 contract for Flock Cameras.
“The concerns about, ‘oh my gosh, we’re going to be on camera. Oh my gosh, they’re going to track us’ – I want to say everybody up here has at least one, if not two, cell phones. If you go outside, there are cameras everywhere. You are on camera hundreds of times a day.”
That night officials also narrowly approved an up to nearly $500,000 contract for automated license plate readers installation and maintenance from Motorola.
Bacerra, who is running for reelection, Mayor Valerie Amezcua, Councilmembers David Penaloza, Thai Viet Phan and Johnathan Hernandez did not respond to requests for comment.
Amid pushback from residents, officials in Santa Ana are expected to review their contract for the cameras while officials in Fullerton are expected to publicly hold a presentation on their use of the cameras.
At the 5:30 p.m. Fullerton city council meeting Tuesday, police officials are expected to give a presentation on the nearly 20 Flock cameras in the city, how they’re used and how successful they’ve been at solving crimes since they went up in 2021.
It comes after a handful of residents raised questions publicly about the cameras in August and called for a public discussion on the technology.
“I didn’t know about the advanced AI powering these cameras. I didn’t know that the cameras are actually owned by private tech companies, not our local police. I did not know that our data is stored and shared with all kinds of other agencies,” said resident Keiko Suda at the Aug. 18 Fullerton city council meeting.
“I didn’t know that they’re collecting data about literally everyone, even me, without my consent, without a warrant to track me, without even the slightest suspicion that I’ve committed a crime.”
Meanwhile, Santa Ana Councilwoman Jessie Lopez, who is running for state assembly against Penaloza, says she has called for a review of the city’s own Flock contract at a city council meeting next month amid growing concerns from residents about the cameras.
“We haven’t finalized the language, and so it could be to end the contract. We’re still having to meet with the city attorney’s office to determine what are the legal obligations here, because it is an active contract,” Lopez said in an interview about her request.
Lopez’s request comes after the Inadvertent reported last month they obtained public records from the city showing a fusion center in Northern California ran searches on the city’s ALPR system on behalf of multiple federal agencies under the Department of Homeland Security.
“Our community was promised that their data wasn’t going to be shared, and now we know that it is being shared without their consent, without a warrant, and without their knowledge,” Lopez said.
Santa Ana Police Chief Robert Rodriguez did not respond to questions about the fusion center’s queries on the city’s system on behalf of the federal agencies.
Lopez isn’t the only one wanting to review the contract.
Councilman Ben Vazquez also said he is calling for an audit of the Flock contract.
“It’s really an infringement on our rights to privacy, but also it really puts our immigrant community at harm’s way. We’ve seen it across the country how they use this data to attract our communities,” he said in an interview.
Vazquez added having a cellphone is different from Flock because it’s a personal choice.
“Your phone, you bought it; it’s your consent. The city putting cameras up and using them in cars and tracking people and sharing it with the government – that’s a different story,” he said.
This won’t be the first time city officials in OC discuss whether to keep an automated licence plate reader contract.
In neighboring Costa Mesa, officials this summer decided to keep their Flock contract and called on staff to renegotiate their contract regarding data accessibility and collection after a Costa Mesa police officer used the devices to stalk women, including his wife, an ex-girlfriend and romantic rivals.
[Read: Costa Mesa Keeps Controversial Flock Cameras, Looks to Clean Up Contract Next Year]
Flock in Fullerton
According to a staff presentation, there are 17 stationary license plate reader cameras in Fullerton and two mobile ones that have cost the city nearly a quarter of a million dollars since they started operating in 2021.
Police officials say the cameras are not used for immigration enforcement or to track people but to capture photos of license plates with the data deleted every month unless used for evidence.
Since the cameras went up, officials say they have recovered 274 stolen vehicles and found 18 missing people.
According to Flock’s transparency webpage, the cameras have detected nearly a million unique vehicles in the past month and have detected nearly 5,000 flagged vehicles.
The city’s data is accessible to a host of law enforcement agencies across the state including the same fusion center that shared Santa Ana data with federal agencies.
Flock in Santa Ana
There are 24 Flock license plate readers in Santa Ana that retain data collected for a year, according to Flock’s transparency page.
The website states there were over 1.3 million unique vehicles detected in the past month but does not state how of those vehicles had been flagged.
To view which cross streets the cameras are located, click here.
When Santa Ana officials approved the contract last year, they called on the police department to come back in a year and provide a presentation on the effectiveness of the cameras but activists and some elected officials say that never happened.
Isuri Ramos, Chispa’s executive director and a planning commissioner, said it is important Santa Ana officials hold up that promise and review the contract – something she said was months passed due.
“We have now also learned that data that was collected by Flock in Santa Ana was accessed by federal agencies,” said Ramos, who is running for city council.
“The minimum that the city council should do as soon as possible is agendize the review of this contract, so that we can hear firsthand what has happened, what has not, how was this data shared, why was it shared, was that illegal?”
Ramos also said she doesn’t believe the benefits from technology like Flock cameras and drones outweigh the concerns from residents about the city increasingly becoming a surveillance state.
“I don’t believe that it outweighs the privacy concerns, the concerns of surveillance, the concerns of illegal data sharing and I can’t believe that because of everything we’ve seen to date.”
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org.
