Santa Cruz became the first city in California to terminate its contract with Flock Safety on Jan. 13, in a six-to-one vote by the city council. Flock Safety is a security company aiming to create a nationwide network of license plate data collection. 

Though Santa Cruz’s contract for the eight cameras is set to end on Feb. 12, Capitola still has 10 Flock systems, and Watsonville has 37. Now, residents in those cities have ramped up their own campaigns for contract termination. 

“You can’t surveil your way to public safety,” said Get the Flock Out of Watsonville member Gabriel Barraza. “Maybe you can, but you can not do it in a way that maintains people’s civil liberties and freedoms.” Get the Flock Out is a grassroots campaign dedicated to removing Flock cameras from Santa Cruz County. 

Flock collects a vehicle’s state of registration, physical appearance and license plate number. Law enforcement can then use the data for criminal investigations if they determine there is a need to do so. 

Flock’s main selling point is an increase in overall community safety, achieved through ease of crime monitoring through cameras that partially control themselves using AI. However, criminality can be redefined based on who controls the cameras, as well as the cities who have contracts with the company. 

Watsonville Interim Police Chief David Rodriguez affirmed that the city does not plan on ending its contract with Flock anytime soon, despite a data breach in the neighboring city of Capitola made by out-of-state law enforcement officers working alongside immigration agents from 2024 to early 2025.

According to Santa Cruz Local, “Capitola Police have confirmed that they violated state law in sharing data with out-of-state agencies, and said the violations were unintentional.” 

“High-poverty areas contain more than double the number of surveillance cameras as low-poverty areas,” said city representative and chair of the Santa Cruz Latino Affairs Commission Manny Nevarez. “If at least 50 percent of the residents are Black, they have four times as many cameras as majority white areas.”

Barraza remarked on Get the Flock Out’s efforts in campaigning for Watsonville city officials to vote against the use of Flock cameras, stating that the organization has two out of seven council members in their favor.

He also expanded on the larger circumstances that create and perpetuate crime that cannot be solved with surveillance cameras — namely food insecurity, rent increases and a lack of affordable recreation for youth beyond their regular school day. 

“If you don’t see a link between people’s economic situation, poverty and increases in crime, then you’re either ignorant or you don’t care,” Barraza said. 

Another organization committed to aiding Santa Cruz County amid the backdrop of a country-wide immigration crackdown is Your Allied Rapid Response – Santa Cruz (YARR). While the volunteer-run organization does not have an official stance on Flock cameras, volunteer Janet Byrd emphasized their dedication to reporting local ICE activity in an email to City on a Hill Press.

“This includes, in part, managing our 24-hour bilingual hotline for the reporting and then verification of ICE activity and presence in Santa Cruz County, and the mobilization of legal responders to document ICE activity,” Byrd wrote.

In response to Flock’s activity in the county, residents of Capitola and Watsonville have begun to call upon their local officials to act against both local AI camera surveillance and national ICE raids.

“We needed to get involved with the various issues that are going on in the community,” Barraza said. “All of it is tied to whether people have a right to live decent lives with dignity.” 

Resources

DeFlock’s “Find Nearby ALPRs” page provides a map of all currently reported Flock cameras in Santa Cruz county. 

The YARR hotline (831) 239-4289 can be used to report any ICE sightings in the county.