|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Woodside officials are taking a closer look at the security of data gathered by automated license plate cameras in town after the company it contracts with came under fire for allowing unauthorized searches in other Midpeninsula cities.
Automatic license plate readers (ALPR) by Flock Safety are a controversial topic after records showed that unauthorized law enforcement agencies accessed sensitive data from cities including Atherton, Menlo Park and Mountain View. During Woodside’s most recent quarterly and annual report on license plate cameras, residents were vocal about pausing the license plate readers in town over concerns about the potential invasion of privacy and public safety.
“(Flock’s) data has been used to surveil protesters, even to track down women who have had an illegal abortion,” said Nancy Goodban, executive director of Fixin’ San Mateo County, at Woodside’s Feb. 10 council meeting. “These kinds of threats to the privacy of anyone who drives through Woodside are dangerous to community safety, and these dangers outweigh the benefits.”
At that meeting, Town Manager Jason Ledbetter said that an audit of ALPR search queries showed them to be compliant with the town’s policies. Woodside’s policy requires staff to audit 10 randomly selected searches every quarter to determine compliance with its policy restricting searches to local agencies. Woodside reports having more than 117,000 searches across its 26 cameras over the last year.
Town Council member Jenn Wall questioned how valid a small sample size can be in confirming that the searches are compliant with the town’s policies.
To maintain oversight, the town established policies that require a quarterly review of search inquiries, intended to provide the community with transparency over the use of license plate reader data.
San Mateo County Sheriff’s Sgt. Nick Boragno confirmed that he has looked through every search inquiry from outside agencies since ALPRs were installed in Woodside in May 2023 and continuing to the present day. Over the past three years, searches in Woodside have only been conducted by the Sheriff’s Office, Redwood City and San Mateo police departments. These are the only three agencies that have authorized access to Woodside’s data, he said.
The Sheriff’s Office staff also shared that it routinely conduct audits which the county’s civil grand jury also reviews.
In 2025, license plate readers in Woodside helped law enforcement locate two stolen vehicles and identify suspects involved in a theft that occurred in Portola Valley, according to the staff report. Last year, over 3 million unique license plates were read in the town. Woodside’s data was searched at least 111 times to identify potential witnesses in active investigations, according to the staff report.
Last year, an investigation by The Almanac also found that federal agencies have been conducting searches in Atherton and Menlo Park, despite such searches being restricted by those towns.
Last month, the security of the data collected by Flock cameras again came under scrutiny after a Mountain View Voice investigation revealed that over 250 agencies across California had searched Mountain View’s license plate camera data without its authorization, violating the city’s rules for accessing the data.
Mountain View’s national and statewide sharing mode had been turned on by Flock between August and November 2024, without the city’s knowledge, which allowed federal agencies to conduct searches of Mountain View’s data.
In March 2025, Flock created a policy that helps agencies comply with state laws by prohibiting federal agencies from accessing Flock’s database in California and Virginia, said Flock spokesperson Lily Ho. She explained that the national lookup model was removed from California agencies so that there would be no accidents.
At Woodside’s meeting, Ho clarified that Mountain View was on a pilot program with the company and was testing out the product during the investigated time in 2024. The city did not officially become a customer of the vendor and establish its own license plate reader policies until January 2025, she said.
After Mountain View opted to disable its cameras earlier this month, the City Council of East Palo Alto decided to explore whether it would renew its three-year contract with Flock.
Woodside Council member Wall expressed concerns about the settings on Woodside’s data system and asked Flock and the Sheriff’s Office to confirm that the “sharing mode” remains off and that future system upgrades will not cause changes to the town’s settings without its knowledge.
The Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the national search settings are off for Woodside’s data, meaning federal agencies do not have access to local information.
Ho also assured Wall that written confirmation can be provided stating that settings for Woodside’s cameras are set to local access only and that any software changes will not “silently” revert the town’s sharing permissions.
“Even though it states in our policy that we can share with anyone in the state of California, it has been kind of the inferred policy that any request that comes in that’s not from Redwood City Police Department, San Mateo Police Department or the Sheriff’s Office is just dismissed,” said Ledbetter
Seven residents of Woodside and San Mateo County spoke during the Town Council meeting, urging the town to pause its license plate readers, citing incidents of privacy and safety risks in Virginia, Illinois and Texas.
“I think it’s wild that until tonight, I didn’t hear about any verification of the settings that are
even in our dashboard,” said one public commenter. “We cannot continue just blindly trusting a vendor that I think has lost the confidence of our community.”
Even San Mateo County residents who live outside of Woodside urged the council to reject the annual report and pause its Flock cameras. In public comments at the Town Council meeting they shared their concerns about Flock’s involvement in local audits and compliance checks.
“We know that Flock’s program puts the Woodside community in danger. The fact that there hasn’t been any problems with the Woodside data yet does not predict that there won’t be future issues,” said a public commenter.
Wall called for the town to pause the license plate reader program and the installation of additional cameras, including the one on Runnymede Road. Her recommendation to the council included an immediate transition to a third-party audit model and hiring of an independent firm with expertise in privacy and security.
“As we review the data tonight, we must look beyond the compliant labels in our internal audits and address the significant negative press coverage surrounding Flock Safety,” said Wall, who added that the vendor’s behavior suggests they are unreliable.
Other members of the council shared their uncertainties about pausing the program but were open to changing the audit reporting structure between the Sheriff’s Office and the town.
Council member Dick Brown opposed Wall’s position, mentioning how easily private information can be obtained through things like supermarket transactions and the Internet.
“I’m just not sure I’m ready to do a wholesale change just because there’s a few instances around the country,” said Brown.
Mayor Brian Dombkowski acknowledged that there are a lot of unfavorable conditions with the town’s contract with Flock, including its self-certification model, software concerns and balancing safety with privacy. Although it would be easy for the council to decide to pause the program, he said he cannot dismiss the benefits of the cameras and the original unanimous vote to install it a few years ago.
“I think the Mountain View example is a false equivalency,” Dombkowski said.
Council member Hassan Aburish said he believes that there should be a safety net within Woodside that protects its community members from crime. While he wasn’t in favor of pausing use of the cameras, he was open to changing the reporting structure and looking into alternative vendors.
Council member Paul Goeld said he agreed with Aburish but highlighted that, no matter what vendor the town works with, the audit on license plate reader searches will be dependent on the truthfulness of the Sheriff’s Office and its deputies.
After a long discussion, members voted to approve the annual audit and unanimously moved to reinstate a relationship with the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office to provide direct audit reports to the council. The council also voted 4-1 to search for a third-party auditor for license plate reader search inquiries. Council member Dick Brown cast the dissenting vote.
Cops offer a crash course in real world policing at Menlo Park’s community academyMarch 6, 2026 10:49 am