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Rohnert Park Public Safety | License plate readers

The Press Democrat reported the police chief telling the City Council in January 2026 that the city operates 32 Flock Safety devices, 30 license plate readers and two live pan-tilt-zoom cameras, and that he was asking to cut retention from 365 days to 30. A county auto theft task force grant paid for ten of the readers.

At a glance

Flock devices in the city, as reported by The Press Democrat
32, made up of "30 automated license-plate readers and two live pan-tilt-zoom surveillance cameras", per the chief's January 2026 statement to the council [2]
Who pays for them, as reported by The Press Democrat
"Ten of the plate readers are funded by SONCAT, a regional public safety partnership. The remaining cameras are paid for by the city." [2]
Cameras funded by the task force, per the department presentation
Ten: "SONCATT allocated funding for 10 cameras in Rohnert Park" [1]
Cost stated in the department presentation
"$3000 per camera per year. Cost covered by SONCATT for two years." [1]
Who owns the equipment, per the department presentation
"The hardware is the property of Flock and the user (Rohnert Park DPS) will have access to the data warehoused in the system" [1]
Retention stated in the department presentation
"Data NOT stored for more than 30 days" [1]
Retention before the January 2026 vote, as reported by The Press Democrat
The chief told the council "We currently have a retention policy of 365 days ... We're asking to change that retention policy to reduce retention of Flock camera footage or information to 30 days." [2]
Retention after the January 2026 vote, as reported by The Press Democrat
Cut from one year to 30 days; the paper reported the vote passed 4-0 with one councilmember absent [2]
Date of the presentation
the file in our corpus carries no date we can read [1]
Retention in the written policy manual
Policy 461.4 of the July 2019 manual says "All ALPR data downloaded to the server should be stored for a minimum of one year (Government Code § 34090.6)", and Policy 461.5(c) calls for audits "on a regular basis" [3]
The policy text adopted after the January 2026 change
not in the records we fetched; the manual in our corpus predates the change [3]

How it happened

  1. Context

    Policy 461 in the department policy manual

    The department policy manual dated July 2019 carries Policy 461 on license plate readers. Section 461.4 says data downloaded to the server "should be stored for a minimum of one year (Government Code § 34090.6)", and section 461.5(c) calls for audits on a regular basis. [3]

  2. Decision

    Council cuts retention to 30 days, as reported by The Press Democrat

    The Press Democrat reported that "Late on Jan. 27, the City Council voted to reduce retention of data collected by its Flock Safety cameras from one year to 30 days. The vote passed 4-0, with one councilmember absent." The paper reported the chief telling the council the city operates 32 Flock devices, 30 plate readers and two live pan-tilt-zoom cameras, and quoted him saying "We currently have a retention policy of 365 days." We did not read the council record. [2]

What the department told the council

A presentation to the City Council, item 9B, presented by Chief Tim Mattos, explains where the cameras came from. It says “The Sonoma County Auto Theft Taskforce (SONCATT) received a grant to install Flock cameras throughout Sonoma County. Rohnert Park has the third highest rate for stolen vehicles. SONCATT allocated funding for 10 cameras in Rohnert Park.” On the commercial terms it says “Flock is a subscription service to the user. The hardware is the property of Flock and the user (Rohnert Park DPS) will have access to the data warehoused in the system. $3000 per camera per year. Cost covered by SONCATT for two years.” It carries a stolen-vehicle table by jurisdiction for 2021, 2022 and 2023, with totals of 1,058, 883 and 710.[1]

One slide sets out what the system does and does not do, in the presentation’s own words: “Gathers evidence about vehicles NOT people”, “Alerts police of wanted vehicles”, “Used to solve crime”, “NOT facial recognition”, “NOT tied to personal identifiable information”, “NOT used for traffic enforcement”, “Data NOT stored for more than 30 days”.[1]

What the reporting says

The Press Democrat reported on January 29, 2026 that “Late on Jan. 27, the City Council voted to reduce retention of data collected by its Flock Safety cameras from one year to 30 days. The vote passed 4-0, with one councilmember absent,” and that the city “will keep its Flock camera network but cut data retention to 30 days, following hours of public concern over privacy, immigration enforcement and oversight.”[2] We did not read the council record behind that vote.

The same article gives the size of the network. It reports that the chief “told the council the city currently operates 32 Flock devices: 30 automated license-plate readers and two live pan-tilt-zoom surveillance cameras. Ten of the plate readers are funded by SONCAT, a regional public safety partnership. The remaining cameras are paid for by the city.” A pan-tilt-zoom camera is a live video camera an operator can aim and zoom, which is a different capability from reading a plate.[2]

The undated presentation told the council that data is “NOT stored for more than 30 days.” At the January 2026 meeting the chief said the policy in force was longer: “We currently have a retention policy of 365 days … We’re asking to change that retention policy to reduce retention of Flock camera footage or information to 30 days.”[2] The 365 days he described has a written source. Policy 461.4 of the department’s July 2019 policy manual says data downloaded to the server “should be stored for a minimum of one year (Government Code § 34090.6)”, and Policy 461.5(c) calls for audits on a regular basis.[3]

What it does not establish

The council record behind the January 2026 vote is not in the records we fetched, so the motion, the conditions and the effective date come to this page through a newspaper. Where the 32 devices are installed is not in any record we fetched. The policy text adopted after the January 2026 change is not in our corpus either; the manual we hold carries a July 2019 date and predates it. What the task force is, legally, and which agencies can search the cameras it funded are not answered in any record we fetched. What happens to the ten task-force-funded readers after the two years of SONCATT funding the presentation describes is also open.

Questions

How many Flock devices does Rohnert Park have?
The Press Democrat reported that the chief told the council in January 2026 that the city "currently operates 32 Flock devices: 30 automated license-plate readers and two live pan-tilt-zoom surveillance cameras." We did not read the council record. [2]
How long does Rohnert Park keep license plate data?
Thirty days, according to The Press Democrat's account of the January 27, 2026 council vote, which the paper reported cut retention from one year to 30 days on a 4-0 vote with one councilmember absent. The paper quoted the chief telling the council "We currently have a retention policy of 365 days ... We're asking to change that retention policy to reduce retention of Flock camera footage or information to 30 days." We did not read the council record. Policy 461.4 of the July 2019 manual sets the one-year minimum he described. [2] [3]
Who paid for the cameras?
The department's presentation says "The Sonoma County Auto Theft Taskforce (SONCATT) received a grant to install Flock cameras throughout Sonoma County" and that "SONCATT allocated funding for 10 cameras in Rohnert Park," at "$3000 per camera per year. Cost covered by SONCATT for two years." The Press Democrat reported that "Ten of the plate readers are funded by SONCAT, a regional public safety partnership. The remaining cameras are paid for by the city." [1] [2]
Who owns the cameras and the data?
The presentation says "Flock is a subscription service to the user. The hardware is the property of Flock and the user (Rohnert Park DPS) will have access to the data warehoused in the system." [1]

On the map

The community has mapped 361 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 Sonoma County.

What we have documented in Sonoma 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.
    Rohnert Park City Council, item 9B presentation on Flock Safety license plate readers, presented by Chief Tim Mattos (the file carries no date we can read) · Meeting record · accessed · archived copy
  2. 2.
    The Press Democrat, "Rohnert Park trims license-plate surveillance after residents push back," January 29, 2026 (updated January 30) · News · · accessed · archived copy
  3. 3.
    Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety Policy Manual, July 2019 · Primary document · accessed · archived copy · our copy (2712 KB)

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