San Francisco Adopts Partial Flock Safeguards After Human Rights Commission Investigation

Event: September 25, 2026 · First reported: September 29, 2026 · 2 sources

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announced new policies on Thursday governing SFPD's use of more than 400 Flock license plate cameras, following a Human Rights Commission investigation that identified oversight gaps. The inquiry was prompted by reporting that out-of-state and federal agencies accessed SFPD Flock data more than 1.6 million times between August 2024 and February 2025. The new rules keep a 12-month retention period but require police leadership approval and a tie to an active investigation to access data older than 30 days, plus incident reports for all searches, monthly log reviews, and an annual audit by the Department of Police Accountability. The city adopted three of the commission's five recommendations.

Why this matters

San Francisco's response shows a city accepting some external oversight recommendations while declining others, and the gap between what reviewers asked for and what was enacted offers a reference point for other jurisdictions weighing ALPR safeguards.

Key facts

The Human Rights Commission found SFPD did not violate the city's sanctuary laws when outside agencies accessed its Flock data, but found the department was unaware Flock had enabled its Nationwide Lookup feature.
SFPD has disabled Nationwide Lookup, but the new policy does not give the department direct control over the feature, as the commission recommended; SFPD also declined to fully enable all available transparency settings.
Flock announced in August that it reduced its default retention period from 30 days to seven days and added Evidence Mode and Audit Assistance tools; the ACLU has questioned how those safeguards work in practice.
The San Francisco Democratic Party voted 11-3 to affirm support for continued Flock use, with four abstentions and 13 absent; Mission Local reported two voting members, Lily Ho and Trevor Chandler, are Flock employees, and the party has no conflict-of-interest rule covering such votes.
Party Chair Nancy Tung said a $10,000 donation from Chris Larsen and Flock's outreach did not influence her actions after the SF Standard reported she used an officeholder account for a $347 flight to a Flock law-enforcement conference.
Flock's contract extension is scheduled for a Board of Supervisors vote in February 2027.

Timeline

September 29, 2026SF Adds New Flock Safeguards Following Human Rights Commission Investigation
September 29, 2026SF Adds New Flock Safeguards After Human Rights Commission Investigation

Sources

This summary was written from the published reporting below and links to it; BlockFlockNow does not reproduce article text.

SF Adds New Flock Safeguards Following Human Rights Commission Investigation (Sfist, September 29, 2026)
SF Adds New Flock Safeguards After Human Rights Commission Investigation (SFist, September 29, 2026)

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About this record

BlockFlockNow documents reported incidents involving Flock Safety cameras and automated license plate readers: council votes, contract decisions, misuse by authorized users, lawsuits, audits, and community response. Every record is reviewed by a person before publication. New to the topic? Start with What is Flock?, find meetings near you, or learn how to request your town's camera records.

Updated October 14, 2026. Corrections: blockflock@bytebunny.io. See all documented incidents or search the full article archive.