{"slug": "santa-ana-should-lead-orange-county-by-ending-flock-surveillance", "title": "Santa Ana should lead Orange County by ending Flock surveillance", "summary": "Records obtained by Inadvertent show the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, a law enforcement fusion center, conducted more than 27,000 searches accessing Santa Ana's Flock Safety license plate reader network over a six-month period, including searches on behalf of federal and out-of-state agencies that California law prohibits ALPR data from being shared with. At least seven federal agencies appeared in the stated reasons for searches, including the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration, according to the records. The disclosure comes as more than 55 localities nationwide have ended their Flock contracts in the past year, including the Los Angeles Police Department, and after Santa Ana's City Council failed to conduct the one-year review it promised when it approved the system.", "body_md": "**Getting your**\n\n[Trinity Audio](//trinityaudio.ai)player ready...\nA year ago, Santa Ana approved Flock Safety’s Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) system with failed promises. City leaders committed to revisiting the program after one year to evaluate whether it was meeting its goals and serving the best interests of our community.\n\nThat review never happened.\n\nAt a time when artificial intelligence (AI) and surveillance technologies are rapidly expanding, alongside increased immigration enforcement, the City must be proactive in defending communities from harmful surveillance and data-sharing practices. Local governments have a responsibility to protect residents’ privacy, civil rights, and safety, not prioritize the interests of private surveillance companies. By failing to conduct the review it promised, the City Council has also failed to uphold its own commitment to accountability.\n\nWhen the Council approved Flock, it was Councilmember Jessie Lopez who raised serious concerns about government surveillance, threats to privacy, potential misuse, and whether license plate data could ultimately be accessed by federal agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Despite her warnings, the technology was approved without meaningful community engagement or consent.\n\nSome City Council members including Mayor Valerie Amezcua, Councilmember Phil Bacerra and David Penaloza dismissed these privacy concerns altogether, arguing that people should have little expectation of privacy while traveling in public and comparing Flock cameras to cell phones. But there is a fundamental difference: people have some control over the information they share through their personal devices, including privacy settings and the ability to opt out of certain services. Santa Ana residents were given no such choice. By installing this surveillance infrastructure throughout our city, the City Council effectively opted for everyone who lives, works, or drives through Santa Ana.\n\nThose concerns are even more significant today. Immigration enforcement has escalated across Southern California, and Santa Ana has found itself at the center of major ICE enforcement activity and community protests. Thousands of people have gathered in downtown Santa Ana to oppose immigration raids, while National Guard troops have been deployed to our city.\n\nAnd today, we know far more about Flock than we did when Santa Ana approved its contract.\n\nOver the past year, communities across California and the country have begun reconsidering whether Flock’s surveillance network is worth the cost to privacy and civil liberties. Most recently, the Los Angeles Police Department allowed its contract with Flock Safety to expire amid growing concerns about privacy and oversight.\n\nMore than 55 localities nationwide have ended their contracts with Flock in the past year alone, reflecting growing concerns about the technology and its potential for abuse. At the same time, serious questions remain about how data collected by these systems can be accessed and shared with other law enforcement agencies, including federal immigration authorities. Flock creates a searchable record of where people travel and stores that information in a network that can be queried by participating agencies across the country.\n\nNow, newly released records show that those concerns have materialized right here in Santa Ana.\n\nAccording to records obtained by Inadvertent, the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, a law enforcement fusion center, conducted more than 27,000 searches that accessed Santa Ana’s Flock network over a six-month period. Records indicate that searches were conducted on behalf of federal and out-of-state agencies, the very categories of agencies that California law prohibits ALPR data from being shared with. At least seven federal agencies appeared in the reasons given for searches, including the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshals Service, and Internal Revenue Service.\n\nThe revelations raise serious questions about whether Santa Ana can meaningfully control what happens to residents’ data once it enters Flock’s broader surveillance network. They are particularly alarming because, when the City Council approved Flock, residents and Councilmember Jessie Lopez specifically warned about the possibility that information collected in Santa Ana could ultimately become accessible to federal agencies. City officials moved forward anyway.\n\nSanta Ana is not alone in this. In April, a former Costa Mesa police officer pleaded guilty to using Flock’s license plate reader system to unlawfully track his wife, his mistress, and other individuals for personal reasons. Separately, reporting by [Inadvertent](https://www.inadvertent.news/p/fusion-center-ran-flock-searches) found that law enforcement agencies across California searched the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s Flock database at least 145 times to identify protesters over a period of just 19 months. Those searches relied on data collected by cameras that record license plate numbers, timestamps, locations, and photographs of vehicles.\n\nThese incidents demonstrate that even when surveillance technology is adopted for legitimate public safety purposes, it can be repurposed in ways that threaten privacy, free expression, and public trust.\n\nThat matters especially in Santa Ana.\n\nOur city is home to one of the largest immigrant communities in Orange County. Many residents already live with the fear that routine interactions with the government can expose them or their loved ones to over-policing, and predatory data brokers. Continuing to fund and expand a system that tracks people’s movements and stores that information in a nationwide surveillance network directly undermines the values Santa Ana has claimed as a sanctuary city.\nThe city should immediately honor its commitment to residents by conducting the one-year public review it promised, providing meaningful opportunities for public comment, and honestly evaluating whether this technology reflects our community’s values. Given what we have learned over the past year, the answer should be clear: Santa Ana should end its contract with Flock Safety and become the first city in Orange County to move away from this surveillance system.\n\nWe can keep our neighborhoods safe without building a system that tracks where our residents go, who they associate with, or whether their movements may one day be used against them. It is time for Santa Ana to lead once again. The City Council should place the one-year review on its next agenda and vote to terminate the Flock contract. No more ALPRs. It’s time to get the Flock out of Santa Ana.\n\n*Bulmaro Vicente is policy and political director of Chispa, a Latino advocacy group in Orange County*", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/santa-ana-should-lead-orange-county-by-ending-flock-surveillance", "canonical_source": "https://www.ocregister.com/2026/09/09/santa-ana-should-lead-orange-county-by-ending-flock-surveillance/", "published_at": "2026-09-10 02:05:06+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-10 02:19:53.713362+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "ai-ethics", "computer-vision"], "entities": ["Flock Safety", "Santa Ana", "Northern California Regional Intelligence Center", "Inadvertent", "Los Angeles Police Department", "Federal Bureau of Investigation", "Drug Enforcement Administration", "Jessie Lopez"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/santa-ana-should-lead-orange-county-by-ending-flock-surveillance", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/santa-ana-should-lead-orange-county-by-ending-flock-surveillance.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/santa-ana-should-lead-orange-county-by-ending-flock-surveillance.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/santa-ana-should-lead-orange-county-by-ending-flock-surveillance.jsonld"}}