We Demand More Information on How Marin Cops Illegally Shared Flock ALPR Data

The Marin County Sheriff’s Office is the latest California law enforcement agency to get caught sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data from their Flock Safety system with out-of-state and federal agencies. EFF and the ACLU of Northern California are calling them out for this direct violation of California law, which has put every driver in the county at risk and is especially dangerous for immigrants, abortion seekers, and other targets of the federal government. Today, we sent the Marin County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) a demand letter and request for records under the California Public Records Act following the Point Reyes Light’s recent report that MCSO provided non-California agencies access to its ALPR database. This directly violates California law and the terms of the 2022 Settlement Agreement in our case Lagleva v. Marin County Sheriff. ALPRs are cameras that capture images of vehicles and upload their location to a searchable, shareable database. They are a mass surveillance technology that collects data indiscriminately on every vehicle on the road. Sharing ALPR data with out-of-state or federal agencies—for any reason—violates California law (SB 34). If ...