Flock Safety Cameras — Surveillance, Immigration & Broken Trust

active• eastpaloalto

East Palo Alto's City Council is deeply divided over Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras — a controversy that has damaged trust between residents and the Council majority. Mayor Webster Lincoln and Councilmembers Mark Dinan and Martha Barragan voted in December 2025 to sign a three-year contract renewal with Flock Safety despite community concerns over immigration and data sharing — and when residents organized to bring the issue back to the Council in April 2026, the same three members voted to remove the item from the agenda entirely. The situation worsened when Flock representatives withdrew the option to cancel the contract without penalty during recent negotiations — a reversal of what the Council majority had assured the community was a safeguard. For a city that is 66% Latino with significant immigrant families, the fear that license plate data could be accessed by ICE is not abstract — it is a daily lived reality. Police Chief Jeff Liu acknowledged the concern: "I've been constantly weighing what's the community benefit versus the concerns over the Flock data, and I am concerned as well."

Related cause: Public Safety

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