Julia Monahan, of Get The Flock Out, listens during public comment at a city council meeting at Santa Cruz City Hall on Nov. 18, 2025. (Amaya Edwards — Santa Cruz Local/CatchLight Local)

Alexandria Bordas is the Managing Editor at Santa Cruz Local.

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY >> We’ve heard from hundreds of residents via Instagram, email, surveys and in-person listening events that government transparency is top of your list when it comes to our recent news coverage. Our reporters responded, and in one of our most important reporting feats to date we examined the use of automated license plate readers operated by Flock Safety: an Atlanta-based company contracted with hundreds of agencies across the country.

Our ongoing investigation into Flock Safety started in August, 2025, when we first started hearing pushback from the community to contracts with Flock being approved by Watsonville Police Department. The main concerns first brought up by anti-surveillance advocates were mostly centered on local law enforcement agents potentially handing over information to federal agencies like U.S. 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 said there might still be ways around the law.

Then in November, senior reporter Jesse Kathan uncovered a damning truth: throughout 2024 and early 2025, federal and out-of-state law enforcement agencies searched Capitola Police Department’s database of automatic license plate readers more than three million times, violating multiple laws. At least 190 were done by sheriffs offices and police departments running searches on behalf of ICE. Similar data breaches occurred in the City of Santa Cruz, which Jesse revealed less than two weeks after the Capitola story broke. In the immediate aftermath, thousands of people took to social media to demand local leaders weigh in on the issue and take action. As a result, residents and activists collaborated to engage on the issue of data privacy and the role of local government. 

The impact of our reporting is clear and growing:

• On Jan. 13, the Santa Cruz City Council voted to end its contract with Flock Safety.
• In Capitola, the police chief announced new audits and processes to comply with the law.
• Local advocates are trying to start discussions over Flock with elected officials in Watsonville, which contracts 37 cameras – the most out of any city in the county. 
• Candidates running for office in this year’s election cycle are consistently including talking points about Flock and data surveillance in their campaigns. 
• Hundreds of people reached out to us on Instagram asking about how we reported the story, and Jesse teamed up with in-house visual reporter Amaya Edwards to tell the tale.

We’re not the true heroes of this story – we’re only a catalyst. It’s because of residents and advocates like Get the Flock Out, who pressured elected leaders on Santa Cruz City Council to cancel its contract with Flock Safety on Jan. 13, that we’re seeing real policy change.

Flock cameras are in thousands of communities across California and the country and we’ve gotten requests from other journalists, activists, researchers and curious residents across the state about how to replicate the data process we used to look into our local agencies. We want local governments to be transparent about how the data is used, and empower residents and other journalists to demand these public records. In response, we’ve created this guide on how to investigate Flock in your community. 

Our guide for requesting, tracking and analyzing Flock Safety data in your own communities. Also, check out our civic engagement tracker to see what other critical topics we’ve been following in Santa Cruz County.

Do you have suggestions on what we should cover next? Reach out to senior reporter Jesse Kathan: [email protected].

Questions or comments? Email [email protected]. Santa Cruz Local is supported by members, major donors, sponsors and grants for the general support of our newsroom. Our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support. Learn more about Santa Cruz Local and how we are funded.