Skip to content
ORWELL INDEX

Who runs license plate readers in Alameda County?

Also listed here because the record shows it

These systems are documented primarily as something else. They appear here because a cited record shows the deployment also does this.

On the map

0
Verified by us
1407
Community-reported

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), including community reporting via the DeFlock project. Tiles by OpenFreeMap.

What we do not know

Alameda County Sheriff

  • What the office's plate reader policy says. California law requires an agency operating plate readers to publish a usage policy. We have not read one for this office. The five Board of Supervisors packets in our corpus contain no mention of plate readers apart from the single procurement document this page rests on, and the office's transparency portal has not been swept, so this is a gap in our reading rather than a finding about the office.
  • How long this office keeps plate data, who may search it, and what is required before a search.
  • The exact number of cameras, where they are, and what the system costs. The county document says "over 100" and gives no figure, no locations and no price.
  • Which agencies this office shares its plate data with, and on what terms.
  • Whether the cameras have grown in number since 2023. The only count we have is from a document describing a 2023 contract.

Berkeley Police

  • Whether the council approved the March 2026 requests. The document is a staff recommendation with a proposed resolution attached. Nothing on this page says the council adopted any of it, because we do not know that it did.
  • What the plate reader Use Policy approved in July 2023 actually says: retention, who may search, what is required before a search, and who receives the data. We have not read it.
  • What the cameras have cost so far. The figures in the March 2026 item are authorization ceilings for a future contract, not amounts spent.
  • What the Police Accountability Board recommended. The item says the board reviewed each technology in public meetings. We have read a summary presentation of its recommendations and not the recommendations themselves.

Drones [Alameda County Sheriff]

  • Whether the Board approved the AeroDome purchase on July 8, 2025. We read the Sheriff's recommendation, not the vote. Nothing on this page says the system was bought, because we do not know that it was.
  • How long drone footage is kept, and what the revised General Order 6.15 changed. The public raised drone data retention at the 2023 hearings, the office said it would consult data and privacy experts, and a revised order was presented in May 2024. We have not read it.
  • What the 279 deployments outside the three named models used, and what any of the 756 flights were actually for beyond the three broad purposes the report gives.
  • Why the Public Protection Committee meeting scheduled for October 23, 2025 was cancelled. The report records that a supervisor requested it and gives no reason.
  • Whether the office's plate reader system and its drones share data in practice, beyond the integration the procurement document describes as the reason only one vendor could supply the drone system.

What license plate readers are

An automated license plate reader photographs every passing vehicle and records the plate, the time and the place. It does not watch suspects. It logs everyone, and the record is usually kept on a vendor’s servers.

How they work, why agencies buy them, and every county we have documented →

What you can do

Civic action

Show up

This technology is bought and renewed by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have not yet confirmed where each of them meets in Alameda County.

Go to the Alameda County hub →

Personal protection

Protect yourself

Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.

Surveillance Self-Defense ↗