In July 2026, the San Leandro Police Department stopping sharing license plate reader data with the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC). This came after the San Francisco Police Department reported hundreds of illegal queries of its license plate reader data by out-of-state and federal agencies in June 2026.
Sharing of license plate reader data with out-of-state and federal agencies was prohibited by a California law that went into effect in 2016.
However, at the September 16, 2026, meeting of the San Leandro Community Police Review Board, San Leandro Assistant Police Chief Luis Torres reported that an audit by IntegrAssure in early September, the independent police auditor showed that NCRIC had made queries of San Leandro’s license plate reader data. It was at this point that San Leandro Police Department staff realized that the NCRIC has been able to access San Leandro license plate reader data because of the California state lookup tool.
The San Leandro Police Department had not disabled the California state lookup tool in Flock’s license plate reader user interface. If a law enforcement agency disables the California state lookup tool, it prevents that agency from searching license plate reader data from other California agencies. Because the California state lookup tool was enabled for the San Leandro Police, any California law enforcement agency that also had the California state lookup tool enabled could search San Leandro’s license plate reader data, even if direct data sharing is disabled.
This is yet another example of how Flock is biased towards license plate reader data sharing even when law enforcement agencies are trying to limit data sharing. How many California law enforcement agencies have disabled direct sharing with an agency not knowing that the other agency could still access their license plate reader data because of the California state lookup tool in Flock’s system?