Rancho Cordova's $1M license plate camera program faces growing backlash

Concerns are growing over police surveillance cameras in Rancho Cordova.

The City of Rancho Cordova is spending more than $1 million on a five-year contract with Flock Safety to install 53 roadside cameras around town.

The system automatically captures license plate numbers of vehicles passing by and provides that data to police.

"We use it from any crime, from theft all the way up to shootings and worse, and so it is a valuable tool for us," said Rancho Cordova Police Chief Mathew Tamayo.

Tamayo said the technology is helping solve the growing number of mailbox thefts in the city.

"Since our Flock network went live, we had 19 mail theft arrests and 13 of them were as a result of flock," he said. "It was one piece of information that we used in our broader investigation."

But a number of other places in California, like Santa Clara County, are ending the use of flock cameras due to privacy concerns.

An audit in Ventura County found that the data was shared with out-of-state law enforcement, including federal agents, which violates state law.

"There are severe privacy issues found from the flock system that the public is becoming increasingly more aware of," Said Katelyn Sheehan, a resident of Rancho Cordova.

Some Rancho Cordova residents are now calling on the city to cancel its contract with Flock, creating a website called Deflock Rancho Cordova, along with writing letters and speaking out at this week's city council meeting.

"I am asking that we suspend the system until we confirm no unintended illegal use has occurred," Sheehan said.

But Chief Tamayo said Rancho Cordova has safeguards in place to protect the data from being accessed without authorization.

"We didn't share with anybody out of state. We didn't share it with any federal agencies," he said. "I understand immigration enforcement is a huge concern, and we were not sharing that information."

Rancho Cordova police said they're working with the nearby cities of Folsom, Citrus Heights, Galt and West Sacramento to create a regional real-time information center in Elk Grove where the cameras can be monitored.