MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — The Mountain View City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday, Feb. 24, to terminate its contract with Flock Safety after the police department discovered that outside agencies — including Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives offices in Kentucky and Nashville and Langley Air Force Base in Virginia — had accessed the city’s license plate camera data without authorization.
Mountain View joins a growing number of California cities pulling back from Flock Safety. Santa Cruz voted in January to end its contract with the company on Jan. 13 and became the first city in California to do so. Two days later, on Jan. 15, Los Altos Hills also terminated its agreement.
Mountain View launched the automated license plate reader (ALPR) pilot program in mid-2024 and authorized a one-year contract with Flock Safety worth up to $96,800. The system uses pole-mounted cameras to photograph passing vehicles, referencing that data against “hot lists” of vehicles linked to crimes or missing persons and generating real-time alerts to officers when a match is detected…