Alameda County supervisors approve Flock Safety contract extension

On Tuesday, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors met to decide whether to approve an extension of the Flock Safety license plate reader system.  

The Alameda County Sheriff's Office said it was a valuable tool and a way to coordinate information with other Bay Area departments.  But there are concerns about who else may be able to access the data.

Tuesday's Board meeting began with an admission by the sheriff's office that 140 unauthorized searches of the Flock license plate camera data occurred in the past year.  It happened when two approved law enforcement agencies allowed other, out-of-state entities to search the data. When questioned, Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez said those two agencies have now been shut out of the system, along with about 60 percent of the other departments they had previously been sharing information with.

"I am telling you what happened!" Sheriff Sanchez told the board. "I am disclosing to you and the community what happened, and what corrective actions we took. Which means we shut off half the state."

California law forbids sharing of recorded data outside of the state to prevent ICE and other agencies from gathering information about immigrants and women exercising state abortion rights.  But as they considered whether to approve an extension to the Flock camera system, Board President David Haubert said he did not think the data breach happened for those reasons.

"These cameras are meant to keep us safe," Haubert said.  "I don't believe that they are widely used by ICE.  Has it been shown that it's happened?  I don't think it's widely used by the federal government."

But Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas disagreed.

"You know, these are not normal times, as someone said. This is not a normal presidency," she said. "And this is also a company that there is a lot of distress around, including from myself personally."

The Flock Safety system has come under fire in many cities and the company responded on Wednesday with a statement saying, "We heard the concerns raised by residents throughout this process and will continue working with the county to strengthen the safeguards, audit controls, and oversight that keep this system accountable to the people it serves."

But Brian Hofer wasn't buying it.  The former chair of Oakland's Privacy Advisory Commission and Executive Director of a group called Secure Justice, said he is preparing a lawsuit against the county and sheriff's department over past instances of Flock data being accessed by unauthorized entities.

"The board president yesterday said he doesn't believe these tools are being used for ICE.  The CEO of Flock says these tools are being used for ICE! Their own audit logs show they're being used by ICE. And he just doesn't believe it," Hofer said. "It's just, like, very intentional, willful ignorance. They only want to consider positive facts and never the negative when they're evaluating these technologies."

But with many Bay Area departments using, and sharing, information via the Flock platform, supervisors expressed concern about what would happen if they opted out of the system. And in the end, with a 4-3 vote, they approved the contract with Flock for an additional 18 months. But the extension may be a temporary action.  When the previous contract expires at the end of the year, the county is free to seek other vendors if it so desires.