Watsonville Police officers stop a car near Riverside Drive. (Nik Altenberg — Santa Cruz Local)
SANTA CRUZ >> Watsonville Police Department reported the use of automated license plate reader cameras in 98 incidents in the last six months. The report, delivered during Tuesday’s Watsonville City Council meeting, came two weeks before the city is set to renew its contract with Flock Safety — the company that manages the cameras.
Police Department Captain Donny Thul and Assistant Chief David Rodriguez delivered the report, and said the cameras helped police find an attempted murder suspect and a serial shooting suspect since their installation in 2023.
Cities across the state have partnered with Flock Safety to aid in investigations, but not without pushback from those worried about data privacy. Concerns from advocacy groups have mostly centered on local law enforcement agents potentially handing over information to federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
State law has legally prevented law enforcement agencies within California from sharing data collected by Flock cameras with out-of-state agencies since 2016, but critics have argued there might still be ways around the law.
During a Santa Cruz City Council meeting in 2023, Peter Gelblum, president of the Santa Cruz chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, criticized the widespread use of the cameras by local law enforcement agencies. He said, “the only way to guarantee that the data is not hacked or obtained by anybody else is to not collect it in the first place.”
Thul, the police captain, said new Flock product features now remind officers that data can’t be used for immigration purposes. The department also has a Flock Transparency Portal on its website for the public to learn more about its usage locally.
In 2023, Watsonville signed a two-year contract with Atlanta-based Flock Safety for 20 cameras, with the option for automatic renewal unless they give 30-days notice. The city is set to vote on the contract renewal at its Sept. 9 meeting.
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Tyler Maldonado holds a degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley. He writes about housing, homelessness and the environment. He lives in Santa Cruz County.
