Board approves interim Flock safety contract with audits and narrower data sharing after tense debate

Commanders from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office briefed the board on an internal audit that identified unauthorized external queries into the county’s automated license plate reader database and described corrective steps. The sheriff’s office said it found 140 unauthorized queries out of approximately 6.4 million entries from May 2025 to May 2026, immediately stopped sharing with the two implicated agencies and narrowed the county’s sharing list from roughly 346 agencies to about 123 while instituting weekly audits and publishing sharing information on a transparency portal.

Commander Dave Blanchard said the unauthorized access appeared to stem from partner‑agency misconfiguration or human error at sharing partners and that the identified queries were tied to legitimate law‑enforcement investigations (homicide, assault, child exploitation, human trafficking); he described steps to stop the unauthorized sharing and add auditing and contractual safeguards.

Sheriff’s technical staff and county counsel described revisions in the proposed standard services agreement to clarify county ownership of data, new audit rights, a 48‑hour vendor notice requirement for warrants or subpoenas and explicit prohibitions on sharing with Department of Homeland Security, ICE or U.S. Border Patrol. County counsel reported some Secure Justice recommended edits would be redundant under the agreement’s contractual hierarchy; others (website exhibit freezes and written deletion certification) could be addressed in a first amendment.

Public comment was sharply divided: dozens of speakers urged rejection — citing privacy, documented vendor breaches elsewhere, SB 34 statutory limits on interstate data sharing and court decisions on location privacy — while numerous residents and business owners described cases where ALPR and drone footage helped recover stolen vehicles or reunite missing persons. The board debated whether to delay approval to negotiate further language and get a closed‑session briefing on legal exposure under SB 34. Supervisor Tam moved to direct the county administrator to negotiate further amendments and return with analysis; supervisors Miley and Halbert instead offered a substitute motion to approve the interim consolidated agreement now and pursue additional safeguards in the RFP and subsequent amendments. The substitute passed 3–2 (Marquez and Fortunato Bass opposed).