Oakland Privacy has raised issues with the use of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR) repeatedly in the past, most significantly to identify them as a tool for mass surveillance amid the rapid expansion of ALPR use in the last decade.
Over that same period, state officials have recognized the perils and pitfalls of ALPR use and have made various attempts to further regulate them, including conducting an audit which found law enforcement flouting current ALPR law and not protecting people’s privacy.
It comes as no surprise then that ALPR data continues to be misused and continues to put people at risk. Oakland Privacy Research Director Mike Katz-Lacabe recently filed records request with several California law enforcement agencies that requested audit logs for ALPR from Flock transparency portals.
The first response received was from the Riverside County Sheriff Office. While we would have preferred to wait to receive more responses before publicizing our findings, given what is currently happening with ICE raids in California, we decided that it was important to give the public the information we collected showing that California law enforcement agencies are sharing ALPR data with ICE, and other unknown entities for unknown reasons.
The document Oakland Privacy received from the Riverside County Sheriff (RSCO) for a Flock audit report for the 30-day period of April 28, 2025 to May 30, 2025 shows a log with 489,000 entries. Each entry represents a search conducted in the Flock ALPR database. In some instances, searches were conducted by RSCO – which has a total of 2,910 officers – and other searches were conducted by outside agencies. That is an average of 16,300 searched conducted daily during a one-period month in the RSCO Flock database.
Here are some of the information that is contained in the RSCO audit log:
1. There are two sets of searches where the reason for the search provided included references to Custom and Border Patrol (CBP) cases.
2. There are searches that reference Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) cases, which is a division of ICE and part of the Department of Homeland Security.
This activity is prohibited by California law. SB 34 (2015) prohibits the sharing of ALPR data with out-of-state or federal agencies. In addition, in 2023, the California Department of Justice issued bulletins to all California law enforcement agencies stating that sharing ALPR data with out-of-state and federal law enforcement agencies was prohibited.
To be clear, these records indicate that the ALPR data sharing is in clear violation of the law. The data collected and contained within ALPR systems is supposed to be locked down and it is not.
Other information contained in the audit log:
3. Law enforcement listed “Pablito Escobar” as the reason for the search more than a dozen times. Pablo Escobar was the head of the Colombian Medellin drug cartel in the 1980’s and is widely believed to have died in 1993.
4. Many other reasons for searches were simply listed as “criminal justice” or “investigation”. This is a clear mockery of transparency and accountability which makes it more difficult (but as demonstrated by this audit, not impossible) to identify misuse.
To reiterate, this is a snapshot of the ALPR search activity performed in just one month in one database. There are hundreds of ALPR databases through California. The massive troves of data collected by law enforcement through the use of ALPR is only set to increase as more departments are trying to acquire them, and those who already have them are moving to blanket their cities with ALPR cameras. Rather than ensuring public safety, ALPRs are endangering public safety of vulnerable communities and people. It is now crystal clear that ALPR is being used to violate civil rights and ICE is using the aid of ALPR to persecute immigrants. Local governments must do some soul-searching – in particular those who publicly claim to defend immigrants, defend the rights of Californians, and defend civil rights. The role of ALPR misuse in California must be part of the conversation in this time where Californians are standing up to ICE and standing up for California values.
Here is the raw ALPR data file Oakland Privacy received in response to the request.
This version sorts the data to see the ICE/HSI related searched up top.
Cal Matters coverage: California Police Are Illegally Sharing License Plate Scans with ICE and Border Patrol
If there are Flock or other ALPR cameras in your community, write to your local officials and share the findings of this audit showing that California law enforcement agencies are sharing data with ICE which is in violation of SB 34.