A new audit by The Ark has found 41 California law-enforcement agencies conducted 16,029 potentially illegal searches of Tiburon’s automated license-plate logs from July through December — 18 more agencies than the Police Department disclosed after its own audit of the same period. The department’s keywords would have missed nearly 97% of searches.
The findings come as its vendor, Atlanta-based Flock Safety, has implemented system updates that effectively conceal illegal searches from clients and the public, making already inadequate self-audits even less effective, critics say. And the company is now stripping required data from audit records, a move that immediately puts Tiburon, Belvedere and other California clients in violation of state law, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union.
Meanwhile, Tiburon has further expanded surveillance, adding its first two cameras downtown…