Flock cameras emerge as key issue in Emeryville City Council race

Flock automated license plate readers have become a key issue for Bay Area voters in the November election, with city council candidates divided on the issue in Emeryville as well as in Richmond, Oakland and El Cerrito.   

What some see as a useful crime-reduction tool, others view as an invasion of privacy in a world of increased surveillance. 

Emeryville Today asked the four City Council candidates about their policy plans for Flock and their strategy for public safety generally.

If it were up to Brandon Soublet, he’d take down every Flock camera in Emeryville. Soublet, a communications professional, is a first time council candidate. He said the cameras put everyone under a surveillance spotlight, not just those committing crime. 

“I understand the logic behind it and how it could be useful in preventing crime, but Flock has proven time and again to not be a trustworthy company,” Soublet said, referring to incidents where federal immigration authorities gained access to Flock data.

Corry Frydlewicz, a technology specialist at a law firm, agreed, said, “We’ll do fine without them.” 

Soublet and Frydlewicz are challenging incumbents David Mourra and Kalimah Priforce, who were part of the council’s 2023 unanimous vote to implement Flock license plate readers throughout Emeryville, approving a contract for 16 cameras to be installed for two years, at a cost of just over $100,000.

At that meeting, Emeryville Police Lt. Robert Alton described how Flock could reduce crime. Mourra, vice mayor at the time, said Flock cameras were an “essential tool for our police that’s quite overdue.” Priforce called the technology a “modern tool to address modern crime.” 

Three years later, at a September City Council meeting, Mourra requested a special study session on the license plate readers to better understand how the city would ensure the data collected from Flock cameras was not used by immigration agencies, and how to guarantee police officers aren’t abusing access to the data. The request passed unanimously. 

Mourra told Emeryville Today that there are “well-founded concerns that the license plate data can fall into the wrong hands or be abused by police officers.” He believes the program has been well implemented, but considers it “essential to weigh this benefit against potential risks.”

He said there is a clear public safety benefit in using Flock to help the Police Department solve serious crimes. 

“If the privacy safeguards are not working, we need to ask if there are additional steps we can take or do we need to re-evaluate the role of license plate readers in our city,” Mourra said. 

Priforce did not return Emeryville Today’s requests for comment.

Communities push back

Across the nation, there is a growing backlash to Flock cameras. People have protested data abuses, including information that has been shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation found in 2023 that in California, 71 law enforcement agencies had shared information collected from Flock cameras with federal agencies including ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is prohibited under California law. 

The San Francisco Standard found that out-of-state agencies had direct access to the San Francisco Police Department’s Flock database between August 2024 and February 2025. A Georgia sheriff’s office and a Texas police department tapped into the data, with searches referring to ICE’s Fugitive Operations program, the news site reported. More than 1.6 million searches were run on SFPDs database by outside departments within seven months.

In response, SFPD told the publication that agencies outside of California could no longer access the system, and it was “currently running routine network audits to ensure no unauthorized users are querying.”

The Standard also uncovered that Oakland Police Department information was shared with federal agencies, including ICE, by other California police departments that were able to search Oakland’s database.

In response, OPD said it does not directly share data with federal agenices. 

One of the main organizations pushing against increased surveillance is DeFlock Bay Area. It documents and tracks the expansion of Flock cameras through public records, government contracts and budgets.

“Our objection is routine collection of location information about everybody else because technology makes it easy. Being visible in public is not the same thing as consenting to a searchable history of your movements” the group says on its website. 

Flock said in a January news release that “communities control federal data access.” Flock did not respond to Emeryville Today’s request for comment.

Positions on public safety

Beyond the Flock debate, Soublet said he is a proponent of crime prevention through environmental design, such as “proper lighting, re-designing pedestrian flows, creating vehicular barriers, improving sightlines and other common sense crime prevention practices.”

Frydlewicz believes in “working toward a world without the death penalty, without prisons, and eventually, without police.” 

She supports Emeryville’s policing alternatives, including dispatching mental health professionals to respond to 911 calls, and building on programs and services that exist within Alameda County. 

Mourra said Emeryville “needs to have a responsive and accountable police force.” 

City Council has not said when it will hold the Flock study session Mourra had suggested. 

(Top photo of a license plate reader by Suad Mohamed; candidate photos courtesy of their campaigns)

---

Would Measure BB make Emeryville’s business tax fairer?