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Contra Costa County Sheriff | License plate readers

The plate reader policy the county publishes was last revised in November 2013. It keeps data for a year, shares it through a regional exchange, allows trained volunteers to operate the equipment, and predates the state law that governs plate reader sharing today.

At a glance

Date of the published policy
Issued 7-12-2012, revised 11-18-2013 [1]
Retention
One year, and not more than twenty-four hours in field units or on mobile collection devices [1]
Sharing
With allied law enforcement agencies through the ARIES program, which the policy says is responsible for safeguards on contributed data [1]
Who may operate it
Employees and qualified volunteers who have been trained [1]
Suspicion needed to run the system
None. The policy says reasonable suspicion or probable cause is not required to use the equipment [1]
Canvassing
The policy says readers should be considered to canvass the area around a serious or terrorist incident, collecting plate numbers of vehicles there [1]
Audits
Conducted by the Technical Services Division; the policy sets no schedule or sample size [1]
Limit on federal or out-of-state agencies
the document contains none. It was last revised in November 2013, before the state law governing plate reader sharing took effect. This describes the document, not current practice [1] [2]
Whether a newer policy is posted
We looked and could not find one. The office's own website is unreachable to our tools, and a check by hand in August 2026 across that site and the county's document centre turned up no plate reader policy later than the 2013 revision [1]
Camera count
not in the policy. The EFF Atlas snapshot in this repo counts 37 Flock cameras as of April 2024 [3]

How it happened

  1. Context

    Policy issued

    The Office of the Sheriff issues General Policy and Procedure 1.07.38 covering automated license plate reader devices. [1]

  2. Context

    Policy revised

    The revision date printed on the policy the county publishes. The document sets a one-year retention period and directs sharing through the ARIES program. [1]

  3. Context

    Atlas snapshot counts 37 Flock cameras

    The EFF Atlas of Surveillance records the office operating 37 Flock Safety license plate readers as of April 2024, a vendor the 2013 policy does not name. [3]

What the record establishes

The plate reader policy Contra Costa County publishes is General Policy and Procedure 1.07.38. Its header prints an issue date of 12 July 2012 and a revision date of 18 November 2013.[1] The file is a scanned image with no text layer, which means its contents do not appear in a search of the site that hosts it. We read it as page images.

On retention it says that “ALPR data will be stored by the Office of the Sheriff for a period of one year”, including “photos and all data elements transmitted by the ALPR device”, and that the period “may be shortened to meet data storage capabilities” at a commander’s direction. Data “will not be stored in field units nor on mobile collection devices for more than twenty-four hours”.[1]

Sharing runs through a regional system: data “may be shared with other law enforcement agencies through the ARIES program, which is responsible for establishing safeguards regarding the contributed data”, and “will be shared with allied law enforcement agencies through the ARIES program”.[1]

Two operational lines are worth quoting. Equipment “may be operated by employees and qualified volunteers, who have been trained in its operation”.[1] And on collection: readers “should be considered to canvass the surrounding area of a serious incident or a terrorist incident to collect the license plate numbers of vehicles in the area”.[1] That is a description of collecting the plates of everyone parked or driving nearby, not only vehicles already of interest.

As at the other departments in this county, no suspicion is needed to use the system: “Reasonable suspicion or probable cause is not required to utilize the equipment.”[1]

What the document does not contain

It has no clause on federal immigration enforcement, no restriction on out-of-state agencies, and no protected-characteristic or First Amendment clause. That is a statement about a document last revised in November 2013. California’s rules on plate reader sharing, and the Attorney General guidance reading them, arrived after that date.[2]

This page makes no claim about what the office shares today. The Sheriff’s own website answers our tools with an access-denied page, so a person checked that site and the county’s document centre by hand in August 2026 and could not find a plate reader policy later than the November 2013 revision. That is a statement about where we looked, not a claim that no newer document exists.

Why the date matters

A policy is the instrument a county uses to say what it will and will not do with a permanent record of vehicle movement. When the published version predates the statute that now governs the subject, residents reading it cannot tell which rules are actually in force. State law requires the policy to be published precisely so that they can. That is a fixable problem, and it is fixed by publishing the current document.

Where to ask

Ask for the current policy by name and date, which is a short records request and the one this page most needs answered. Ask which agencies receive county plate data through ARIES. The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors meets in public and takes comment, and the age of a published policy is a reasonable thing to raise there.

Questions

How old is the county's published plate reader policy?
The document the county's document centre serves carries an issue date of 12 July 2012 and a revision date of 18 November 2013. It is a scanned image with no searchable text, so it does not turn up in a site search for words inside it. [1]
Does it say anything about federal or out-of-state agencies?
No. It directs sharing through a regional exchange called ARIES and sets no limit naming federal or out-of-state agencies. California's law on plate reader sharing, and the Attorney General guidance reading it, both came after this document was last revised. We hold no record of what the office actually shares. [1] [2]
Who is allowed to run the equipment?
The policy says plate reader equipment "may be operated by employees and qualified volunteers, who have been trained in its operation". Volunteer operation is unusual among the policies we have read. [1]
Could there be a newer policy we missed?
We looked by hand as well as with our tools. The Sheriff's own website returns an access-denied page to our fetcher, so a person checked that site and the county's document centre in August 2026 and could not find a plate reader policy later than the November 2013 revision. That is what we searched and what we found. It is not a claim that no newer document exists anywhere, and a records request would settle it. [1]

On the map

The community has mapped 577 devices of this type in the county on OpenStreetMap. These are community reports: the vendor and operator of each point are unverified, and none is confirmed to belong to this system. See them on the map →

Street names from reverse geocoding — © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

What we do not know

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 Contra Costa County.

What we have documented in Contra Costa 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

  1. 1.
    Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff, General Policy and Procedure 1.07.38, Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) Devices, revised 2013-11-18 · Primary document · · accessed · archived copy
  2. 2.
    California Department of Justice, Information Bulletin 2023-DLE-06, guidance on sharing licence plate reader data · Law · accessed · archived copy
  3. 3.
    EFF Atlas of Surveillance, Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department ALPR entry (snapshot captured 2026-08-20, row dated April 2024) · Dataset · accessed · archived copy

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