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Tracy Police | License plate readers

In its own application to a state board for Organized Retail Theft grant funding, the Tracy Police Department states that it "purchased 46 FLOCK fixed license plate readers" in October 2022 and that it has 46 of them in the City of Tracy. The same application asks for more readers and a real time crime center. It is a request, and we found no record of an award.

At a glance

Readers, as stated in the department's application dated July 6, 2023
"Currently, the Tracy Police Department has 46 fixed FLOCK license plate readers in the City of Tracy." [1]
Purchase, as stated in the same application
"In October 2022, the Tracy Police Department purchased 46 FLOCK fixed license plate readers." [1]
Vendor
Flock Safety, named by the department as "FLOCK" [1]
Stated use
"These LPRs assist the police department with identifying and locating stolen vehicles." [1]
What the application asks for
"The City of Tracy is requesting ORT Grant Funding to acquire equipment, salary funding, and complete a "Real Time Crime" Center to aid in response to motor vehicle theft and organized retail theft calls. This will include license plate readers, drone communication software, cameras, and other technology alongside increased data collection". [1]
Retention and sharing rules
the application's attachment list names the department's own "Policies on Surveillance Technology", a public safety video surveillance system policy and an automated license plate reader policy. Neither document is in the corpus we fetched, so we can say they exist and not what they say. [1]
Reader locations
the application names no street, intersection or facility, and no record we fetched lists them [1]
Award
we found no award letter, no board award list and no city acceptance item for this application in the records we fetched

How it happened

  1. Procurement

    The department buys 46 fixed Flock license plate readers

    The department's later grant application states: "In October 2022, the Tracy Police Department purchased 46 FLOCK fixed license plate readers." The purchase record itself is not in the documents we fetched. [1]

  2. Procurement

    The department applies for Organized Retail Theft grant funding

    The application, which carries the printed line "Original Submission 07/06/2023", asks the California Board of State and Community Corrections for funding "to acquire equipment, salary funding, and complete a "Real Time Crime" Center," including "license plate readers, drone communication software, cameras, and other technology." It states that the department already has "46 fixed FLOCK license plate readers in the City of Tracy." [1]

An automated license plate reader is a camera that photographs passing plates, converts them to text, and records where and when each vehicle was seen. What we know about Tracy’s readers comes from one document: the department’s own application to the California Board of State and Community Corrections for Organized Retail Theft grant funding, which carries the printed submission date July 6, 2023.[1]

What the department states

The application says “In October 2022, the Tracy Police Department purchased 46 FLOCK fixed license plate readers,” and, in a later section, that “Currently, the Tracy Police Department has 46 fixed FLOCK license plate readers in the City of Tracy. These LPRs assist the police department with identifying and locating stolen vehicles.”[1]

That is an agency-confirmed count, a vendor and a purchase month, all stated by the department itself. It is also three years old. We found no later inventory in the records we fetched, so the figure on this page carries the date of the document that states it.

What the application asks for

The same document asks for more. It states that “The City of Tracy is requesting ORT Grant Funding to acquire equipment, salary funding, and complete a “Real Time Crime” Center to aid in response to motor vehicle theft and organized retail theft calls. This will include license plate readers, drone communication software, cameras, and other technology alongside increased data collection”.[1] A real time crime center is a staffed room where camera feeds, reader alerts and other data are watched as calls come in.

An application is a request. We found no award letter, no board award list and no city acceptance item for it in the records we fetched, so nothing here says the additional readers or the center were funded or built.

What it does not establish

The application’s attachment list names the department’s own “Policies on Surveillance Technology”, a public safety video surveillance system policy and an automated license plate reader policy.[1] Neither document is in the corpus we fetched. Their existence is established by that list, and their contents are not, so how long Tracy keeps a plate read, who can search it and which agencies receive it are all open on this page.

Questions

How many license plate readers does Tracy have?
The department's own grant application, submitted July 6, 2023, says "Currently, the Tracy Police Department has 46 fixed FLOCK license plate readers in the City of Tracy." That is an agency statement carrying its own date. We found no later count in the records we fetched. [1]
When were they bought, and from whom?
The same application says "In October 2022, the Tracy Police Department purchased 46 FLOCK fixed license plate readers." Flock Safety is the supplier the department names. The purchase record itself is not in the documents we fetched. [1]
What rules govern the readers?
We cannot say. The application's attachment list names two of the department's own policies, one for a public safety video surveillance system and one for automated license plate readers. Neither is in the corpus we fetched, so their existence is established here and their contents are not. [1]
Did the department get the grant it applied for?
We found no award letter, no board award list and no city acceptance item for this application in the records we fetched. An application is a request. [1]

On the map

The community has mapped 325 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 San Joaquin County.

What we have documented in San Joaquin 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.
    Tracy Police Department, Organized Retail Theft Prevention Grant Program application to the California Board of State and Community Corrections, printed submission date 07/06/2023 · Primary document · · accessed · archived copy · our copy (699 KB)

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