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 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

Flock surveillance cameras in Oakland are being spray-painted and damaged, part of a growing backlash against license plate tracking networks spreading across the U.S. oaklandside.org/2026... #flock #oakland #tech #privacy #surveillance #bayarea

Who is paint bombing Oakland’s Flock cameras?

Some of OPD’s license plate readers have been vandalized with paint. The vandalism coincides with a nationwide pushback against surveillance.

oaklandside.org

Deleted Signal messages aren’t always gone. The FBI recovered message content from an iPhone, even after Signal was deleted, because previews were stored in Apple’s push notification database. www.404media.co/fbi-... #privacy #encryption #digitalprivacy #cybersecurity #surveillance

FBI Extracts Suspect’s Deleted Signal Messages Saved in iPhone Notification Database

The case was the first time authorities charged people for alleged “Antifa” activities after President Trump designated the umbrella term a terrorist organization.

404media.co

California just approved the first-ever state audit of fusion centers - secretive intelligence hubs that share data across federal, state, and local agencies. Lawmakers say it’s time to understand how these systems actually operate. oaklandprivacy.org/1... #surveillance #privacy #oversight

1st State Level Audit of Fusion Centers Greenlighted in California

On March 24th, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee of the California State Legislature gave the thumbs up to a proposal from state senator Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside) to have the California State Auditor investigate the activities,

oaklandprivacy.org

ICE is still accessing license plate surveillance data, just not directly. Records show Florida wildlife police ran dozens of Flock camera searches for ICE, despite claims the company doesn’t share data with federal immigration authorities. www.404media.co/flor... #surveillance #privacy

Wildlife Conservation Police Are Searching Thousands of Flock Cameras for ICE

Ron DeSantis has empowered hundreds of Florida conservation police to work directly with ICE.

404media.co

New reporting links Thomson Reuters data to ICE targeting tools. Its CLEAR database, which contains personal data like SSNs, addresses, and vehicle records, appears to feed systems used to identify deportation targets. www.404media.co/how-... #privacy #surveillance

How Thomson Reuters Powers ICE and Palantir

Thomson Reuters’ data, which can include peoples’ addresses and details on their ethnicity, is linked to tools used by ICE.

404media.co

Looking for the latest from Oakland Privacy? Visit our website for news, resources, and updates about our work: oaklandprivacy.org To stay up to date, follow us on social media or subscribe to our RSS feed: oaklandprivacy.org/f...

Oakland Privacy

Oakland Privacy is a citizen’s coalition that works regionally to defend the right to privacy and enhance surveillance oversight.

oaklandprivacy.org

The Richmond City Council should vote to stop the mass surveillance perpetuated by this company and protect its residents. @deflock-redmond.bsky.social @flockenburg.bsky.social @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social @twrling.bsky.social

NBC Bay Area@nbcbayarea.com · 6mo ago

The future of Flock cameras in Richmond could be decided tonight. nbcbay.com/L5XcW4m

California fined ticketing company PlayOn $1.1M after students had to hand over personal data to access tickets for school events through its GoFan platform. There was no opt-out; agreeing to tracking was required just to attend games or prom. calmatters.org/econo... #privacy #studentprivacy 1/3

To attend prom or a football game, California students first had to surrender their data

Ed tech companies are required to protect California students’ privacy. This one is being fined $1.1million for violating state law.

calmatters.org