Overview
- Three residents, backed by the Institute for Justice, filed the suit Wednesday at a San Jose federal courthouse, arguing the city’s Flock camera network creates an unconstitutional search.
- The plaintiffs ask the court to require deletion of plate scans within 24 hours unless police obtain a warrant for longer storage.
- The network has 474 cameras and logs millions of scans, with about 2.8 million detections in the last 30 days and thousands of recent queries, plus 2.5 million searches in late 2025 according to audit logs.
- City officials defend the program as lawful and point to March policy changes that cut data retention to 30 days and restrict access by private, federal, and out-of-state agencies.
- Flock says courts have upheld its devices and customers control access, while the Institute for Justice pursues appellate rulings that could set national limits on ALPR collection and retention.