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Sonoma County Sheriff | License plate reader access

Policy 430 of the Sheriff's published manual states that the office does not have license plate readers of its own and reaches plate data through the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center. A national reference dataset agrees that the office operated no readers as of 2022, but names a different route in: a regional auto theft task force.

At a glance

What the policy says the office operates
No readers of its own: "The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office does not have Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR's)" (Policy 430.1) [1]
Where the data comes from
The Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, a regional fusion center, under Policy 430.1 [1]
What the office says it stores
Nothing: the office "does not capture or store digital license plate data and images" (Policy 430.2) [1]
Who may use the access
"trained and authorized Sheriff's Office members for official law enforcement purposes only" (Policy 430.2) [1]
Governing document for the data
Policy 430.2 says the office "will follow the policy of NCRIC" and attaches NCRIC_ALPR_PrivacyPolicy.pdf; that attachment is not in the records we fetched, so the retention, sharing and audit rules that govern the data are unread here [1]
Date of the policy
Policy 430 carries a Lexipol stamp of June 15, 2022 [1]
What the EFF Atlas snapshot records
"As of 2022, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office did not have automated license plate readers, but accessed ALPR data through a regional auto theft task force" [2]

How it happened

  1. Context

    Policy 430 in the published manual

    The manual's Lexipol stamp is June 15, 2022. Policy 430 states that the office has no readers of its own, that it reaches plate data through the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, and that it will follow that center's policy. [1]

What the policy says

Policy 430 of the Sheriff’s Office policy manual carries a Lexipol stamp of June 15, 2022. Section 430.1 states that “The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office does not have Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR’s). However, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office has access to ALPR data, through the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC).” Section 430.2 adds that the office “does not capture or store digital license plate data and images,” that “Access to ALPR data through NCRIC can be utilized by trained and authorized Sheriff’s Office members for official law enforcement purposes only,” that “Office members shall not use or allow others to use database records for any unauthorized purpose,” and that “The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office will follow the policy of NCRIC. See attachment: NCRIC_ALPR_PrivacyPolicy.pdf”[1]

A fusion center is a body that pools data from many police agencies and makes it searchable by them. Under Policy 430 the rules that decide how long a plate sighting is kept, and who else can search it, sit in a document written by that center rather than by the county. That document is not in the records we fetched.

What the Atlas snapshot records

The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Atlas of Surveillance is a national reference dataset. In the snapshot this project captured on August 21, 2026, its row for the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department under automated license plate readers reads: “As of 2022, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office did not have automated license plate readers, but accessed ALPR data through a regional auto theft task force.”[2] That agrees with the office’s own policy on the main point. The two name different routes to the data, the policy a regional intelligence center and the dataset a task force, and we have not established whether the office uses one or both. The same Atlas row also carries a vendor field naming Motorola Solutions, which sits oddly beside a summary saying the office has no readers; we note it once and build nothing on it.

What it does not establish

The manual we read is stamped June 15, 2022, and no later version of Policy 430 was in the records we fetched. Nothing we read shows how many queries the office runs against the regional system or who runs them. No audit result, query log or access list for the office’s use of that system was in the records we fetched.

Questions

Does the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office operate license plate readers?
Its published policy says no. Policy 430.1 states that "The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office does not have Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR's). However, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office has access to ALPR data, through the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC)." The manual carries a June 2022 stamp, and whether the policy still holds is a question we have not answered. [1]
How long is the plate data kept?
Not stated in the policy we read. Policy 430.2 says the office "does not capture or store digital license plate data and images" and that it "will follow the policy of NCRIC." The NCRIC privacy policy the section attaches is not in the records we fetched. [1]
Do the two records disagree?
Not on the main point. The policy says the office operates no readers, and the Atlas snapshot says the same thing as of 2022. They name different routes to the data: the policy names the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, the Atlas names a regional auto theft task force. Whether the office uses one route or both is an open question. The Atlas row also carries a vendor field naming Motorola Solutions, which sits oddly beside its own summary. [2] [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.
    Sonoma County Sheriff's Office Policy Manual (Lexipol, 2022-06-15), Policy 430, Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) · Primary document · · accessed · archived copy
  2. 2.
    Electronic Frontier Foundation, Atlas of Surveillance, snapshot captured by this project on 2026-08-21: row for the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department, Automated License Plate Readers · Dataset · · accessed · archived copy

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