San Diego's $2 million Flock Safety contract goes before a City Council committee Wednesday, Oct. 21.
Councilmember Henry Foster III is bringing a resolution titled "Rescind ALPR use policy" to the Budget and Government Efficiency Committee at 9 a.m., Times of San Diego reported. The proposal would terminate the city's contract with Flock Safety, order the deletion of all stored data and prohibit the San Diego Police Department from using automated license plate readers (ALPRs) under its current policy.
Future use of the technology would not be permanently banned. Any new ALPR vendor would have to go through a full Privacy Advisory Board review and council approval, according to Times of San Diego.
Foster, along with Councilmembers Sean Elo-Rivera, Vivian Moreno and Kent Lee, voted to cancel the contract during June budget hearings but lost 5-4. Councilmember Stephen Whitburn, who voted to keep the cameras as recently as June, reversed his position at an Oct. 13 press conference. His switch gives opponents a five-member simple majority on the nine-member council.
"While I do believe that ALPRs are an effective public safety tool, we can't have our own residents living in fear of the city's cameras. It's not worth it. So, the cameras have to go," Whitburn said Oct. 13, as reported by Yahoo News.
Whitburn, who represents District 3 covering downtown and Balboa Park, said fear in immigrant communities that the federal government could use camera data for immigration enforcement changed his mind, according to KPBS.
The city bans sharing ALPR data with federal immigration officials, according to Voice of San Diego.
Even with a simple majority, the resolution faces a potential veto from Mayor Todd Gloria. Gloria issued a statement on Oct. 13 defending the program, saying the cameras have assisted in nearly 900 criminal investigations and helped San Diegans recover more than $8.7 million in stolen property. Overriding a veto takes six votes. The opponents do not hold that supermajority.
San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl also pushed back, saying in a written statement that SDPD has never shared ALPR data for immigration purposes and that the cameras have helped solve more than 900 cases, KPBS reported.
On Tuesday, Oct. 20, Flock Safety held a virtual press conference sharing SDPD data. The company said ALPRs have supported 907 criminal investigations and 687 arrests since 2023 and located five missing people. Flock also cited a 20% year-over-year drop in auto thefts and said the technology helped support 10 of San Diego's 28 homicide cases in 2025, Yahoo News reported.
Foster's resolution cites the wrongful arrest of Hugo Parra and Ariel Beltran, two San Diego men. A Flock camera linked their vehicle to an attempted carjacking they were five miles away from, according to Times of San Diego. Parra spent nearly a month in jail before the charges were dropped. Both men filed $1.5 million tort claims against the city, which denied them, as we reported Oct. 2. The resolution also cites a data breach that allowed other agencies to access SDPD's network.
The ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties filed a separate lawsuit against the city on Sept. 30, alleging the camera network violates the California Constitution's privacy protections.
La Jolla is not among the 15 San Diego communities listed as having no city-owned ALPRs, as we reported Oct. 16. The heaviest camera concentration is downtown, with roughly 17.8 cameras per square mile.
If the committee advances the resolution, it would go to the full council. The anti-Flock majority could shift after the Nov. 3 election, Voice of San Diego reported.
