Drivers sue California city over nearly 500 police cameras that track drivers across state - BERITAJA

Three drivers successful San Jose, California, revenge a people action suit against the metropolis and constabulary section complete the deployment of about 500 cameras operated by Flock Safety, a arguable surveillance tech institution that uses AI and dedicated cameras to catalogue vehicles’ movements.

Organized by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian nonprofit rule firm, the suit argues that the city’s usage of the exertion constitutes an unreasonable rule enforcement search, successful usurpation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Pictures collected from the cameras are added to elephantine searchable databases that usage AI to thief rule enforcement easy place erstwhile and wherever peculiar vehicles person traveled.

Flock offers a wide scope of surveillance technologies to rule enforcement agencies, governments, backstage companies and homeowners associations, but it is champion known for its nationwide fleet of Automatic Licence Plate Cameras (ALPRs), which are mounted by salient roads to grounds which vehicles spell by and when.

Unlike different ALPR companies, Flock offers its customers the chance to stock entree locally, statewide aliases crossed the country. Its databases could beryllium accessed without warrants by officials astatine participating rule enforcement departments. San Jose shares its Flock information pinch hundreds of different rule enforcement agencies successful California, but not nationwide.

According to a transparency website operated by Flock, the San Jose Police Department has 474 cameras. As of Wednesday, it had detected almost 2.8 cardinal vehicles wrong the erstwhile 30 days, and officers had searched the San Jose database 4,099 times. Thousands of authorities labor crossed the authorities entree California’s databases, according to the lawsuit, and audit logs obtained done a Freedom of Information Act Request showed that the Flock San Jose information was searched 2.5 cardinal times successful the past six months of 2025, the suit found, aliases about 13,500 per day.

The metropolis of San Jose has acknowledged immoderate disapproval of the cameras and location data. Last month, the City Council voted to shorten the information retention period of location accusation that Flock could clasp from 1 twelvemonth to 1 month.

A Flock spokesperson said successful an email that the suit raises “important questions” but noted that courts person many times recovered that “using Flock devices is constitutional.”

Flock cameras successful San Jose, Calif.Courtesy Institute for Justice

A spokesperson for the San Jose Police Department declined to comment. A metropolis spokesperson did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

Flock has been the taxable of respective lawsuits alleging the exertion violates the Fourth Amendment, and it has yet to beryllium recovered culpable. One of those lawsuits was brought past twelvemonth by the Institute for Justice connected behalf of 2 residents of Norfolk, Virginia.The tribunal recovered successful favour of Norfolk, but the lawsuit revealed immoderate accusation about really Flock operates, including that it took hundreds of photos of plaintiffs’ vehicles complete respective months.

The Institute for Justice’s Michael Soyfer, the lead lawyer connected the case, told Beritaja he simply disagreed pinch that court’s determination and has appealed and that he hopes the Northern District of California is much sympathetic.

“What we’ve demonstrated successful these cases is that these cameras person the capacity to make information connected virtually each way group return erstwhile they time off their house. Are they pursuing you doorway to door? No. Are they generating a fewer information points connected conscionable about each way you return successful your car? Yeah, they’re intelligibly could of that, and pinch that accusation constabulary and the authorities could portion together a batch about you, because they usually cognize wherever you live, and they could usually make reasonable inferences,” he said.

“They could find different accusation to fig retired wherever you went, particularly if that process is repeated complete weeks and weeks and weeks.”

Soyfer said Flock cameras are often adjacent delicate facilities, heightening the privateness interest that group could beryllium tracked connected those streets.

“We’ve seen these cameras successful San Jose connected the aforesaid blocks arsenic hospice attraction facilities, migration lawyers offices, hospitals, each sorts of places wherever you wouldn’t want to beryllium monitored and surveilled by the government,” he said.

The suit asks the tribunal to compel the metropolis of San Jose and the constabulary section to delete each Flock images wrong 24 hours isolated from erstwhile location are warrants.

“If the tribunal doesn’t spell for that, our second-line petition is for a warrant request to entree data,” Soyfer said. “But our belief is that it’s the postulation of information that’s really the wounded to people’s privacy, and not needfully access. It’s the attraction of this very wide disposable database.”

Flock has go progressively controversial, pinch communities crossed the country persuading their section governments to cancel their contracts, though the number is still dwarfed by really galore cities renew their agreements pinch Flock each year.

Tony Tan, a package technologist and 1 of the plaintiffs successful the case, said a Flock ALPR is mounted connected the intersection of the thoroughfare he uses to time off aliases return home, making recreation without being tracked impossible.

Tony Tan, a plaintiff successful the case.Courtesy Institute for Justice

“In the past twelvemonth aliases so, pinch the 2nd Trump administration, I’ve been progressive successful immoderate section activism. I’m, for example, volunteering arsenic a ineligible observer, responding to reports of imaginable ICE activity,” he told Beritaja.

“And I’m worried that arsenic I spell to these calls, each clip my licence was being captured. What if that information gets into the incorrect hands successful the future? Even though everything I do I judge is lawful, possibly that could change. Maybe personification wants to retaliate against maine anyway,” he said.