Oakland Privacy
@oaklandprivacy.bsky.social
A citizens’ coalition that works regionally to defend the right to privacy and enhance public transparency and oversight regarding the use of surveillance techniques and equipment. oaklandprivacy.org #privacy #surveillance #civilrights
As cities drop Flock license plate readers over privacy concerns, some are switching to Axon. Now 404 Media is asking residents to obtain public records showing how police use Axon ALPRs and which agencies get access. www.404media.co/is-y... #privacy #surveillance #alpr 1/3
Is Your City Using Axon License Plate Cameras? We Need Your Help
404 Media is filing public records requests around the country to find out how cops are using Axon's ALPRs. Here is how you can do that too.
404media.co
Antioch to replace Motorola and Flock license plate readers with Axon Outpost as part of sole-source $661,687.54 contract to expand to 55 license plate readers, more dash cameras, and AI assistant licenses. www.antiochca.gov/AgendaCenter... @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social @deflock.org
Torres-Walker wanted to get rid of Flock. Police said that the existing Flock contract expires in about 12 months and some of the existing Motorola license plate readers aren't working. @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social @deflock.org
San Pablo Police to spend $100,000 to extend contract with Peregrine until 2027 (since 2018). Peregrine is a data centralization platform for law enforcement founded and staffed by former Palantir employees. @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social @twrling.bsky.social sanpablo.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=...
Oakland Privacy is accepting applications for its 2026–27 Privacy Rights Fellowship, a year-long opportunity to work directly on privacy legislation, surveillance issues, public education, and government transparency. www.linkedin.com/job... #privacy #surveillance #bayarea
Oakland Privacy hiring Oakland Privacy - Privacy Rights Fellowship 2026–2027 in San Francisco Bay Area | LinkedIn
Posted 2:20:15 AM. Oakland Privacy, founded in 2013, is an activist group devoted to fighting against government and…See this and similar jobs on LinkedIn.
linkedin.com
OpenAI is hiring hundreds of contractors to review real ChatGPT conversations to improve its models, according to 404 Media. Chats are anonymized, but reviewers may still encounter sensitive personal information. www.404media.co/insi... #privacy #chatgpt #ai 1/3
Inside ‘Project Lily’: The Humans Reading Your ChatGPT Chats
Humans are reading ChatGPT users’ prompts to improve OpenAI’s models, and those chats can include sensitive, personal information, according to leaked internal documents and real prompts seen by 404 Media.
404media.co
Border Patrol is running secretive “predictive policing” units that analyze Americans’ financial activity and other data to identify people for traffic stops—even when they aren't suspected of a specific crime. www.404media.co/a-se... #privacy #surveillance #policing 1/3
A Secretive DHS ‘Predictive Policing’ Unit is Analyzing Americans’ Financial Habits and Pulling Them Over
404 Media is revealing the name of Border Patrol's predictive policing units, which analyze financial data and have local cops pull people over. The people are not suspected of any particular crime.
404media.co
California has enacted a new student privacy law barring tech companies from selling covered student data or using it to train or develop AI models. The protections now extend to college students. calmatters.org/econo... #privacy #education #ai 1/3
Tech companies are selling kids’ data. A new California law aims to protect their privacy
The new law prohibits technology companies from using student data to train or develop AI models and limits how companies can use that data.
calmatters.org
The Trump administration subpoenaed records on 17 million commercial drivers from a national database California plans to entrust with data on all its drivers next year. The stated purpose: “civil immigration enforcement.” calmatters.org/econo... #privacy #surveillance #immigration 1/3
As California debated sharing data on drivers, Homeland Security subpoenaed 17 million records
Privacy advocates raised alarms as California lawmakers voted to share driver license information with a national nonprofit database. Then, the Trump administration sought trucker records from the organization.
calmatters.org
Leaked Flock documents show the company coaches police on how to persuade city councils to approve or keep its surveillance cameras, urging agencies to "own the narrative" before critics can shape public debate. www.404media.co/own-... #privacy #surveillance #flock 1/3
‘Own the Narrative’: Leaked Flock Guide Shows How It Teaches Cops to Promote Its Tech
"This document shows a coordinated effort from Flock Safety to compel law enforcement agencies to convince our elected leaders to represent their interests as a company rather than the interests of concerned citizens."
404media.co
California lawmakers are advancing a bill to tighten limits on automated license plate readers, including restricting data retention, access, and sharing after years of privacy concerns and documented misuse. calmatters.org/polit... #privacy #surveillance #alpr 1/3
California police love license plate readers. Privacy advocates and lawmakers want limits
They’re all over our roads and really good at helping police solve crimes, but do California’s automated license plate readers need limits?
calmatters.org
Alameda County approves $2.4 million contract with Flock after audit finds Alameda Co. Sheriff license plate reader data being shared in violation of California state law. @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social @twrling.bsky.social oaklandside.org/2026/07/01/2...
$2.4 million surveillance contract with Flock approved by Alameda County
The 3-2 decision by the Board of Supervisors followed the discovery that county surveillance data was illegally shared with the feds.
oaklandside.org
Another police department was violating California state law by sharing license plate reader data with a federal agency. It should be more shocking, but until there are consequences, here we are. @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social @indivisibletrivalley.org www.pleasantonweekly.com/police/2026/...
Pleasanton PD admits feds previously had access to license plate reader data
Pleasanton Police Department officials acknowledged flaws in its previous automatic license plate reading system after a public records request by an Oakland-based citizens' coalition revealed that th...
pleasantonweekly.com
A surveillance company plans to upgrade license plate readers to also collect identifiers from phones, smartwatches, AirPods, vehicle systems, and other Bluetooth-enabled devices, potentially linking specific people to vehicles and locations. www.404media.co/this... #surveillance #privacy 1/3
This Company Will Add Phone, AirPod, and Smartwatch Trackers to License Plate Readers
SignalTrace “links devices that regularly travel together, correlating them to license plate.” It is a surveillance product that will sweep up and add all sorts of Bluetooth and other data to license plate readers, linking specific devices—and people—to cars.
404media.co
Oakland's 293 Flock license plate readers recorded more than 638 million plate scans in 2025. Yet only 0.17% generated a "hotlist" alert, and OPD says the volume of stolen vehicle alerts was so high that many were effectively unusable. oaklandside.org/2026... #surveillance #privacy #flock 1/3
Flock cameras captured over 600 million license plates in Oakland last year
Only a small fraction of the plates were associated with criminal suspects, according to police.
oaklandside.org
ICE plans to give more than 1,200 local police agencies a facial recognition app that scans faces against 250+ million DHS and State Department records to verify immigration status, according to internal documents obtained by 404 Media. www.404media.co/ices... #surveillance #privacy 1/3
ICE’s Plan to Let Cops Around the Country Scan Faces to Verify Immigration Status
ICE plans to give potentially more than a thousand agencies access to a facial recognition app that verifies a person's immigration status.
404media.co
Flock Safety hosted a private webinar training police on how to address city councils and "reframe common concerns" about its surveillance cameras as opposition grows across California and beyond. oaklandside.org/2026... #surveillance #privacy #flock 1/3
Flock is quietly training Bay Area police to sway city leaders to buy surveillance tech
As East Bay communities raise concerns about civil liberties and immigration enforcement, the license plate camera company is seeking support from its customers — law enforcement officers.
oaklandside.org
Dayton, Ohio has started covering its Flock license plate reader cameras with black trash bags after months of controversy over immigration-related data sharing, uncertainty over whether the cameras are still active, and growing public pressure to remove them. www.404media.co/citi... 1/3
Cities Are Covering Flock Cameras With Trash Bags
Regretful cities aren't sure how to cancel their surveillance contracts, so they are literally covering their cameras.
404media.co
The FTC says Cox Media and two marketing firms falsely claimed they could listen to people through phones and smart devices to target ads. The companies agreed to pay $930,000 to settle the allegations. www.theverge.com/pol... #privacy #surveillance #adtech 1/3
Cox Media fined after bragging it spied on users through their phones
It compared the tech to Black Mirror — but it apparently didn’t exist.
theverge.com
BusPatrol, which already has AI cameras in more than 40,000 school buses, plans to turn them into roaming license plate readers and share the data with law enforcement, according to leaked documents reviewed by 404 Media. www.404media.co/busp... #privacy #surveillance #alpr 1/3
‘BusPatrol’ Put AI Cameras in Tens of Thousands of School Buses. Now They Want to Give Cops Access
BusPatrol plans to scan the license plates of all vehicles the buses drive past, and then let law enforcement search that data. The plan would essentially turn school buses into roaming surveillance vehicles.
404media.co
The FBI wants nationwide access to automated license plate readers, according to procurement records reviewed by 404 Media. The system would let agents search vehicle location data across highways, cities, territories, and tribal lands. www.404media.co/the-... #privacy #alpr #surveillance 1/3
The FBI Wants to Buy Nationwide Access to License Plate Readers
Only a couple vendors could likely fulfill what the FBI is after, namely Flock and Motorola.
404media.co
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon say they built a system that can track human movement through walls using ordinary Wi-Fi routers, receivers, and AI pose estimation tools. The setup reportedly worked with hardware costing around $30. www.bgr.com/2173166/... #privacy #surveillance 1/3
Scientists Show That Routers Can Be Used To Track Your Movements Through Walls - BGR
How standard routers are becoming the ultimate spy tools. Learn about the technology that can estimate human movement through walls using only Wi-Fi signals.
bgr.com
After reporting by CalMatters and The Markup, most data brokers identified as hiding deletion request pages from search results have removed the “no-index” code. Only 8 of the original 35 still use it. calmatters.org/econo... #privacy #databrokers 1/3
We exposed data brokers hindering Californians’ rights. They’re changing their ways
Following a CalMatters investigation and related Senate pressure, more data brokers have stopped hiding opt-out pages from consumers.
calmatters.org
California lawmakers are advancing a bill to ban “surveillance pricing” using personal data like age, location, or browsing history to algorithmically change prices. Maryland, Colorado, and Connecticut passed similar bans this month. calmatters.org/econo... #privacy #surveillancepricing 1/3
Why surveillance pricing bans are suddenly gaining traction this year (and not just in California)
A law advancing in the California Legislature algorithmic surveillance pricing illegal. Three other states just passed such bans.
calmatters.org
According to its 2025 annual automated license plate reader report, Oakland detected 638,747,333 vehicles with its 290 ALPRs. There were 33,235 alerts for stolen vehicles but only 25 recovered stolen vehicles attributed to ALPRs. @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social www.documentcloud.org/documents/28...
Oakland 2025 Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) Annual Report
Annual report prepared by the Oakland Police Department for the Oakland Privacy Advisory Commission meeting of May 7, 2026. Prepared by Omar Daza-Quiroz, Acting Deputy Chief OPD, Bureau of Investigati...
documentcloud.org
El Cerrito to vote on spending $315,000 for 40 mass surveillance cameras over 3 years at tonight's City Council meeting. @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social @deflock-redmond.bsky.social @deflockatlanta.org @flockenburg.bsky.social elcerritoca.portal.civicclerk.com/event/921/fi...
El Cerrito joins a growing list of cities and counties deciding to cancel or not renew contracts with the mass surveillance vendor Flock. Vote was 3-2 at about 12:30am to not renew the contract. @deflock-redmond.bsky.social @deflockatlanta.org @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social
On May 5, 2026, the Oakland City Council approved a no-bid contract with Cellebrite 6-2 through 2027 for $140,000. Ramachandran and Fife opposed the contract. @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social oakland.legistar.com/gateway.aspx...
oakland.legistar.com
Oakland approved a $140,000 contract extension with Cellebrite, the Israeli company whose tools can unlock phones and extract data including messages, app activity, and location history. OPD says it has used Cellebrite since 2014. oaklandside.org/2026... #privacy #surveillance 1/3
Oakland approves police contract with Israeli company that does business with ICE
Did city leaders ignore a law prohibiting contracts with vendors that work with federal immigration agencies?
oaklandside.org
A federal judge is weighing whether to block a Trump administration policy that can deny visas to people accused of pushing “content moderation” policies on US tech platforms. Researchers say the rule is already chilling speech and academic work. www.theverge.com/pol... #freespeech #techpolicy 1/3
Trump administration defends right to ban content moderation experts from US
A group of researchers warns it will chill studies of tech platforms.
theverge.com