California´s Woodland police defend Flock license plate cameras amid privacy concerns

Daniel Lempres, The Sacramento Bee on Sep 2, 2026

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Woodland Police Department responded to community concerns about its use of the Flock Safety automated license plate recognition system amid growing opposition to the technology.

In a presentation to the City Council, Chief Ryan Kinnan explained the system and shared recent cases that Flock helped solve, including an assault with a deadly weapon, a hit-and-run and the recovery of multiple stolen vehicles.

“It’s absolutely a game changer when conducting investigations,” Kinnan said.

License plate recognition uses a network of cameras on public roads that take pictures of passing vehicles, extract information about them and store it in a database for law enforcement use. Supporters say the technology allows police to locate vehicles involved in crimes and has been used to solve cases ranging from murder to bike theft. Opponents say it violates privacy and have raised concerns about data security and the system’s accuracy.

Flock is the largest automatic license plate recognition system in the country. The Atlanta-based company works with more than 7,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide, including more than a dozen in the Sacramento region.

Some Woodland residents have long opposed the city’s use of the technology. They shared their privacy concerns with the City Council in February, before Woodland signed a two-year extension for its Flock cameras. Some returned to the council in March, prompting the city to commit to reviewing how its system captures and stores information.

Since the city extended its Flock contract, the company has been at the center of growing opposition to license plate readers.

The Grass Valley Police Department suspended its Flock contract in early August, removing all its cameras within days of making the decision. The Roseville Police Department has been defending its use of the technology after a July report found more than 1,000 inaccurate license plate alerts generated by the system. The Elk Grove Police Department is reviewing an audit showing outside law enforcement agencies queried the city’s license plate data more than 8 million times.

Woodland residents opposed to Flock renewed their calls for the contract’s cancellation last month. In response, the City Council asked the department to include information about how it uses the system in Tuesday’s presentation.

There are 38 Flock cameras in Woodland and one license plate reader from competitor Motorola’s Vigilant system. Woodland’s cameras have scanned more than 392,000 license plates in the past 30 days, according to the department’s transparency website. Roughly 2,100 of the scans were of vehicles police placed on “hotlists,” which allow departments to receive alerts when a vehicle they believe is associated with a crime is scanned by any Flock camera.

The department conducted 5,647 automatic license plate reader searches from January through the end of June 2026. The technology “assisted officers with identifying suspects, locating vehicles, comparing evidence, recovering stolen vehicles, and making arrests,” according to a department report.

The department has been auditing the system monthly since the beginning of 2026, even though department policy requires only annual audits. The department tracks the reason for every search of its Flock database and can restrict other agencies and investigate any unusual behavior, Kinnan said.

The department also has published a page on its website to share information about its use of ALPRs, he said.

Councilmember Mayra Vega has heard from appreciative constituents whose property was recovered using Flock, but more often she hears from people wary of the technology.

“I think almost every other day I have somebody reach out to me, and I appreciate and share some of the concerns,” Vega said. “We have a diverse community here. We have a lot of immigrants. We have mixed status families, and I love how our community comes together and they want to make sure that we’re protecting our citizens.”

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