Flock Implements Enhanced Guardrails Across California to Ensure Lawful and Responsible Use of LPRs

Members of the public understandably have questions about how law enforcement technology is used and who may have access to investigative tools.

Through review of agency audit logs within the Flock platform, it has become apparent that some CA law enforcement agencies, including Ventura County, in 2025 had their camera networks inadvertently accessible to out-of-state law enforcement agencies for a period of time. Flock sincerely regrets the confusion and mistrust this has created within several communities, and made every effort possible to determine the cause of each reported instance of inadvertent sharing. Unfortunately, due to earlier limitations in technical logging, in some cases it is impossible to determine a specific cause.

Regardless of the cause, Flock takes full accountability for this situation, and has made changes and improvements to significantly enhance agency ability to effortlessly comply with applicable laws, regulations, and community norms that govern information sharing, including implementation of settings logging to ensure that all changes going forward are tracked, and standardized guardrails governing data access and sharing are robust.

These new and augmented safeguards include:

• CA agencies cannot accept or initiate sharing data out of the state or with federal agencies.
• Federal agencies cannot discover or broadly request data sharing in California.
• Federal agencies are not part of statewide or national lookup networks.
• Immigration-related and reproductive-care-related searches are automatically blocked in CA and are available nationwide by administrator activation.
• Every search requires entry of a standardized-based NIBRS offense type to ensure auditability and accountability.
• Cities and counties retain 100% control over their LPR data and determine who it is shared with.
• Any change to sharing settings is now permanently logged.

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These guardrails reflect a broader evolution in how technology providers and law enforcement agencies approach compliance. 

To further address underlying concerns in Flock’s client communities, it is also important to emphasize the following facts, which have always been – and remain – true: 

• Flock does not contract with DHS agencies.
• Flock does not sell data to or share data with DHS agencies.
• There is no “backdoor” access to Flock by any agency.

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“Flock has always provided agencies with tools to comply with state law and relied on each agency and its legal counsel to determine how those tools should be configured,” said Dan Haley, Chief Legal Officer at Flock Safety. “In 2025, it became clear that technology providers must play a more active role in ensuring consistent compliance across jurisdictions. We have since implemented structural safeguards nationwide to prevent misuse and to ensure that our platform aligns with state-level restrictions. We take seriously our responsibility to continuously strengthen protections while supporting lawful public safety investigations.”

Flock Safety and California law enforcement agencies remain committed to ensuring that investigative technologies are used responsibly, lawfully, and with appropriate oversight. The system in place today includes standardized compliance protections designed to prevent unauthorized federal access through lookup networks and to provide clear audit trails for every search conducted.