Berkeley Police | License plate readers
Fifty-two Flock cameras under a contract that expires in July 2026, approved through the city's own surveillance ordinance in 2023. A March 2026 council item asks to renew them alongside drones, fixed cameras and investigative software, all on the same vendor's contract.
At a glance
- Cameras
- 52 Flock Safety plate reader cameras [1]
- Current contract
- Executed July 2024, expiring July 2026 [1]
- How it was approved
- Surveillance Acquisition Report accepted and Use Policy approved July 2023 under the city's Surveillance Technology Ordinance; contract authority approved October 2023 [1]
- Renewal requested
- A two-year renewal at not more than $330,000, with an option for two more years to a total of not more than $660,000 [1]
- Whether the council approved that renewal
- unknown. The March 2026 document is a staff recommendation with a proposed resolution, not a record of a vote. We have not found the minutes [1]
- Oversight
- A Police Accountability Board reviews the technologies in public meetings and makes recommendations to the council [1]
- Retention
- not stated in the council item we read. The Use Policy approved in July 2023 has not been read [1]
- What else is on the same contract
- The city proposes adding drone-as-first-responder hardware, fixed pan-tilt-zoom cameras and investigative software as amendments to the same Flock Safety contract [1]
How it happened
- Decision
The council accepts the acquisition report and approves a use policy
Under BMC 2.99, the city's Surveillance Technology Ordinance, the council accepts a Surveillance Acquisition Report for plate readers and approves a Use Policy. [1]
- Procurement
Contract authority approved
The council approves contract authority for the plate reader system. The contract is executed in July 2024 and runs to July 2026. [1]
- Procurement
A single item asks to renew the cameras and add three more technologies
A council item asks to amend the same Flock Safety contract four ways: renew the plate readers at not more than $330,000 for two years, add drone-as-first-responder hardware and services at not more than $750,000 for three years, add Condor pan-tilt-zoom cameras at not more than $310,000 for four years, and add Flock Nova investigative software at not more than $75,000 for one year. The item argues that "these tools operate within a single platform and that unified procurement delivers significant fiscal, operational, and oversight advantages." [1]
Fifty-two cameras, on a clock
The Berkeley Police Department “currently operates 52 Flock Safety Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras under a contract that expires in July 2026,” according to a city council item from March 2026.
The approval history is unusually legible, because Berkeley requires it to be. Under the city’s Surveillance Technology Ordinance, a Surveillance Acquisition Report was accepted and a Use Policy approved in July 2023. Contract authority followed in October 2023. The contract was executed in July 2024 and runs two years.
What the Use Policy says is a different matter. We have not read it, so this page carries no retention period, no search rules, and no account of who receives the data.
Four technologies, one contract
The March 2026 item is where this gets interesting, and it is not really about plate readers.
The city proposes four amendments to a single existing Flock Safety contract: renewing the plate readers at not more than $330,000 for two years, adding drone-as-first-responder hardware and services at not more than $750,000 for three years, adding Condor pan-tilt-zoom fixed cameras at not more than $310,000 for four years, and adding Flock Nova investigative software at not more than $75,000 for a year.
The reasoning is stated plainly: “these tools operate within a single platform and that unified procurement delivers significant fiscal, operational, and oversight advantages.”
Every one of those figures is a ceiling the council is asked to authorize, not money spent. We render them that way because the difference matters.
Across the county line inside the same county, the Sheriff’s Office made the mirror-image argument eight months earlier, telling its Board that a Flock drone system was the only product that could integrate with the Flock plate readers it already owned. Two jurisdictions, one vendor, the same logic pointing in opposite directions: Berkeley says buying together is better, the Sheriff says having bought already left one option. Both are documented and neither is evidence about the other.
What we do not know about the vote
The March 2026 document is a staff recommendation from the City Manager, submitted by the Chief of Police, with a proposed resolution attached. It is a request.
We have not found the minutes and we do not know what the council did with it. Nothing here says Berkeley approved drones, cameras, software or a renewal. If you take one thing from this page, take that the request exists and that the answer is a separate document nobody has read yet.
The oversight the record describes
The item states that “[e]very technology in this item has been subject to extensive community engagement and civilian oversight,” and that the Police Accountability Board “has had the opportunity to review, discuss, and provide recommendations on each technology through public meetings.”
That is the city’s characterization of its own process. The board’s recommendations exist as a separate document, and reading them is the obvious next step for anyone who wants to know whether the oversight changed anything.
What we do not know
- 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.
What you can do
Show up
Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have not yet confirmed where each of them meets in Alameda County.
What we have documented in Alameda County →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 →Sources
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