San Francisco’s Recent Flock Camera Breach Raises Eyebrows. West Hollywood Says It Has the Answers

San Francisco police said last week that hundreds of searches of their Flock Safety license plate reader data had been quietly run by out-of-state and federal agencies without anyone knowing, in violation of California law.

West Hollywood had its own Flock reckoning earlier this year. The City’s two active contracts total $1.47 million, and back in February and March the council was wrestling with questions San Francisco is only now starting to ask.

The SF breach wasn’t a hack, and Flock didn’t knowingly share or sell the data to anyone. The San Francisco police department gave access to a regional law enforcement intelligence-sharing hub whose analysts ran searches on behalf of outside agencies during overnight hours without knowing that California law prohibits it. Hundreds of searches went through before an internal audit caught it.

What West Hollywood Found

A City staff review completed earlier this year found that 14 outside agencies had accessed West Hollywood’s Flock license plate reader data between December 2023 and February 2026, and that the City had not been notified about any of them. One of those agencies was federal — the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

What happened after that discovery is the reason West Hollywood’s situation looks different from San Francisco’s today. Before the City Council even voted on whether to keep the program, West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station Captain Fanny Lapkin went into the system and removed every outside agency that had access.

“We kicked everybody out,” Lapkin said. Only she and Lt. Ashley Turner have access to the City’s Flock system now, she said, and it’s limited to West Hollywood station personnel. Any sharing with a neighboring department goes through a direct one-to-one request, case by case.

The council voted 3-2 on March 16 to keep the program and direct staff to return with contract amendments. Mayor John Heilman, Vice Mayor Danny Hang, and Councilmember Lauren Meister voted yes. Councilmembers John Erickson and Chelsea Byers voted no, with Byers calling for ending the Flock relationship outright.

“I cannot support ongoing relationships with Flock at this time,” Byers said.

Flock’s Director of Public Affairs Trevor Chandler acknowledged the company had run a pilot program in 2024 with Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations, two agencies under the Department of Homeland Security, saying it was focused on human trafficking and narco trafficking but conceding the company had handled the communication around it poorly.

“We could have been better in communicating that pilot project,” Chandler told the council. “And that’s where we take a lot of responsibility for this confusion and mistrust.”

Heilman said cutting off all sharing between neighboring departments would create its own problems. “If somebody has committed a drive-by shooting in Beverly Hills and they have a license plate, I think we’d want you to share any data about that vehicle coming through West Hollywood,” Heilman said. “That’s the kind of crime where we would want the data shared.”

Lapkin backed that up with an example from a Petco robbery where three suspects split across city lines — Beverly Hills caught two through its own plate data and West Hollywood’s system identified the third. A more recent example is how the cameras helped catch last week’s US Bank robbery suspect. Sgt. Luvano told WEHOonline the camera network was central to that arrest. “Those cameras are worth their weight in gold,” he said. The City’s staff review also documented that the ALPR system had helped recover roughly 175 stolen vehicles over three years, and that in one case, a suspect who attempted an armed robbery and fired at victims as they fled was flagged by Flock two days later when his vehicle re-entered West Hollywood, leading to his arrest.

Meister said the months of scrutiny had been worth it regardless of the outcome. “I think we are definitely much more aware of our contract and how we can strengthen it,” Meister said.

President Reagan used to say trust but verify, and Lapkin’s answer at both the February and March meetings was consistent: the data isn’t being shared, the station controls access, and two people have the keys. West Hollywood found the open door and closed it. San Francisco found out the same way, except San Francisco needed an audit to tell them. Trust but verify seems like useful timeless advice.