Summary
Oakland-based law firm Gibbs Mura filed a class-action lawsuit alleging Flock Safety’s license plate readers allowed federal and out-of-state agencies to access SFPD camera data 1.6 million times in a seven-month period, in violation of California state law prohibiting sharing of California driver data with out-of-state law enforcement and federal agencies. The article does not name a specific court.
Key Points
- 1.6 million accesses by federal/out-of-state agencies in a seven-month period — confirmed
- Law firm: Gibbs Mura, Oakland — confirmed
- Alleged violation: California state law (prohibiting sharing of CA driver data with out-of-state/federal law enforcement) — NOT a contractual prohibition
- Los Altos cameras: shared data with out-of-state agencies more than a million times
- No court named in the article — “San Francisco Superior Court” is unverified
- El Cerrito PD audit documented: FBI, ATF, GSA Inspector General (June–August 2023); US Postal Inspection Service (Sept–Nov 2023); Veterans Affairs Police (May 2025)
Newsletter Angles
- The lawsuit alleges California state law violation, not Flock’s contractual prohibition — the framing matters: it’s the state’s legal prohibition being violated, not the vendor’s terms of service. Agencies in non-California states face only contractual prohibition, not state law
- The El Cerrito audit timeline (2023 access incidents) predates Flock’s June 2025 keyword blocks by 2 years — further evidence that the contractual prohibition was not technically enforced
- The “1.6 million in seven months” figure scales the problem dramatically beyond the 15 searches in APD’s Atlanta audit — useful for comparative framing
Entities Mentioned
- Flock Safety — defendant; denies wrongdoing
- San Francisco Police Department — SFPD cameras at center of lawsuit
- Gibbs Mura — Oakland law firm; plaintiff’s counsel
- David Berger — Gibbs Mura partner; quoted
Concepts Mentioned
- Flock Safety Surveillance Network — scale and access mechanisms
- Vendor-State Governance — contractual vs. technical enforcement gap
Quotes
“The problem that we allege, is that Flock is sharing this information on California drivers with out-of-state law enforcement…” — David Berger, Gibbs Mura partner
Flock response: “takes privacy, legal compliance, and data security extremely seriously” and intends to “vigorously defend” against the allegations.
Notes
⚠️ Important for article sourcing: The lawsuit’s alleged violation is California state law, NOT Flock’s contractual prohibition. Any article claiming “Flock’s contractual prohibition was violated 1.6 million times” is not supported by this source — the correct framing is “California’s law prohibiting out-of-state/federal data sharing was violated 1.6 million times.” The contractual prohibition language comes from the Flock “Does Flock Share Data With ICE” blog, not this article.
No court is named in this source. Do not cite it for any claim about the court where the lawsuit was filed.