California
Santa Cruz County
On record
Checked 21 Aug 2026- Technologies
- 3
- Systems
- 5
- Devices mapped
- 139
Santa Cruz County, California. Device data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), with community reporting via DeFlock. Open the full map →
Santa Cruz County’s research pass read the council minutes behind three separate Flock Safety decisions (Capitola’s 2024 authorization, Watsonville’s 2025 expansion and Santa Cruz’s 2026 termination), the Watsonville council packet with its staff report, order form and Policy 470, the Santa Cruz police policy manual, the Sheriff’s 2024 AB 481 annual report (the 2022 and 2023 reports were fetched but not read in detail), the 2023 civil grand jury report “Surveillance State in Santa Cruz County,” Municipal Code Chapter 9.85, and the 2026 state environmental notice for seven Watsonville camera locations. The grand jury report also records a Cellebrite mobile-phone extraction device the Board of Supervisors approved on December 13, 2022 with federal Urban Area Security Initiative funds, and the Sheriff’s 2023 response that the office had “no intention of acquiring Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) equipment.” The Santa Cruz contract itself, the vendor’s transparency portals, UC Santa Cruz police policies, Scotts Valley and the school districts were not read on this pass and stay open.
What's in use here
The City Council authorized a 24-month lease of ten Flock Safety license plate readers on March 28, 2024, on a 4-1 vote, in an amount not to exceed $68,350. The motion made execution conditional on the City Attorney first writing council direction on third-party data access into the agreement, and we have not seen the executed agreement.
The City Council voted 5-2 on September 9, 2025 to lease 37 Flock Safety license plate readers for 24 months, adding 17 cameras to the 20 the police department had used since September 2023. A state environmental notice received in March 2026 covers camera installation at seven locations.
The City Council voted 6-1 on January 13, 2026 to terminate the city's Flock Safety license plate reader contract and to discontinue use effective immediately. Two months earlier the city paused its participation in statewide sharing of the data, according to Lookout Santa Cruz.
The Sheriff's Office reports 66 drone deployments in 2024 and 52 in 2025, with a dated log of each flight and its reason, eight aircraft models listed with quantities, and no formal complaints in either year.
The county's alarm-registration portal, run by CryWolf Services, carries a video surveillance registration category. The 2023 civil grand jury reported that "the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office reports no use of this video registry for surveillance," and the Sheriff answered that registering "does not provide the Sheriff's Office with any remote access."
Who runs it
The agency is the accountability unit: who voted, whose policy applies, and who answers a records request.
| Agency | Jurisdiction | AB 481 policy | SB 34 policy | Systems |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office | Santa Cruz County | On file | — | 2 |
| Capitola Police Department | City of Capitola | — | Not found on the site | 1 |
| Santa Cruz Police Department | City of Santa Cruz | — | On file | 1 |
| Watsonville Police Department | City of Watsonville | — | On file | 1 |
| 4 agencies on record. A jointly run system counts against each of its operators, so this column is not a county total. "Posted" means the policy is published where the law requires it. "On file" means we hold the document. "Not posted" and "not found" mean we could not find it on the agency's own website on the date shown; they say nothing about how the system is used. An agency with a dash has not been checked, which is not a finding. | ||||
Trackers
Meetings, contracts, records
Nothing listed yet. The trackers launch here, and facts appear only with their sources.
How the inventory works →What you can do
Civic action
Show up
Public comment is open to any resident, and you do not have to be an expert to use it. We have not yet confirmed where the bodies that decide for Santa Cruz County meet. How the inventory works explains what we check and how to check it yourself.
How the inventory works →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.
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