The Alameda County Board of Supervisors approved a contract extension Tuesday for Flock Safety to continue running a network of automatic license plate readers in the county’s unincorporated communities.
With a 3-2 vote, the supervisors extended the contract, which expired last summer, until July 1.
The vote authorizes payment to Flock for the work it has already performed while it was out of contract and for the work it will do during the extension.
As a result, Alameda County will pay Flock an additional $303,600 on top of the $550,600 it already owed the company.
“This is about paying a bill on a contract that’s been performed on,” Supervisor David Haubert said.
Haubert voted to approve the proposal along with supervisors Lena Tam and Nate Miley. Supervisors Nikki Fortunato Bas and Elisa Marquez voted no.
The contract paydown and extension were requested by Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez, who said the Flock cameras are an essential part of her department’s “Real Time Information Center,” which helps deputies spot and respond to crime using various cameras and drones
Sheriff’s Sgt. Fenton Culley, who runs the RTIC, told supervisors that the technology has been used to apprehend suspects in a wide range of cases, including murders, child abductions and robberies.
Culley said that since the county has been using the cameras, it has seen a roughly 57% decrease in auto thefts.
Culley and Sanchez said that the department has worked with the company and the county’s lawyers to ensure compliance with a state law that prohibits sharing data with outside agencies, including federal immigration authorities and law enforcement organizations in states where abortion is illegal that might seek to use Flock data to track down people suspected of accessing reproductive health care services.
“I understand the responsibility that I have to make sure that our data is safeguarded,” Sanchez said.
The cameras are currently used by all of the county’s cities and Culley said that he has given presentations to various groups throughout the unincorporated areas and, while people have concerns and questions, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
Public backlash dominates meeting
That wasn’t the case at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, however, as dozens of people lined up mostly in opposition to the proposal.
Many speakers said it’s not wise to trust the company given the profit motive it has to potentially sell the data its technology captures, that it has shared information in the past despite local and state laws forbidding it, and that the federal government has demonstrated a willingness to access and use such data over the objections or with the help of local law enforcement agencies that collect it.
“This data surveillance exposes the county to serious legal risks and it puts our democracy at risk,” said Valarie Bachelor from the Oakland office of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.
“Right now the Flock contract says that Flock can access our data worldwide. That means information about me and my neighbors, where we travel, where we worship, where we seek health care, where we vote could be compromised and someone else from a different location can see it,” said Bachelor, who brandished a letter she said was signed by 40 local nonprofit organizations in opposition to the proposal.
Supporters included well-known local law-and-order activists Edward Escobar, Brenda Grisham and Tuan Ngo, along with Oakland City Councilmember Noel Gallo.
They and others argued that the technology captures license plates and vehicle information but not faces or other personal identifying information and that access is well controlled by the Sheriff’s Office.
“We don’t have enough police to be proactive. They can only be reactive. So we need the Flock cameras to help to find the families that are walking the streets, that have mental issues, we need them to find the young ladies that are being trafficked to other cities, and we need to just not make this political,” Grisham said.
Tam said she isn’t thrilled with the company but noted that the vote is more about paying an overdue bill for work already performed. Miley said he’s been a fan of this type of technology for years and the Sheriff’s Office is using the cameras “in the correct manner.”
Marquez and Fortunato Bas said they just don’t trust Flock not to share the information it captures or the current federal government not to abuse the technology.
Fortunato Bas, as president of the Oakland City Council, oversaw the approval of Flock technology in that city but says the national political and law enforcement atmosphere is now rife with potential abuses.
“I want to be very clear that while I support responsible use of technology, we are operating in a very, very different time under this administration,” she said.
Future contract still uncertain
The proposal was initially consigned to the board’s Feb. 26 consent calendar, where items aren’t usually subject to discussion or debate and are typically approved by a pro forma vote.
It was pulled from that agenda by Marquez, who wanted a more robust debate about the contract.
“I get the value of this, especially when it comes to search and rescue and just having drones, cameras, the technology,” Marquez said. “But what I don’t trust is this specific vendor, and they have a proven track record of violating our trust. I also am not at liberty to discuss confidential briefings, but with the information that I’ve been briefed on, I’m very, very worried about our vulnerabilities and the risk factors.”
It is possible that the Sheriff’s Office could find a different company to provide similar services once the now-extended Flock contract expires and the county issues a request for proposals in order to make the selection process more competitive.
Supervisors would then have the opportunity to draft contract language that more robustly protects the data from being accessed by outside entities. 2
