Flock license plate readers cost city big, deliver little
sandiegouniontribune.com
Flock license plate readers cost city big, deliver little
1–10 of 22 posts
Re: Flock license plate readers cost city big, deliver little
#2"In San Diego police’s February 2026 Annual Surveillance Report, the department discloses that officers conducted more than 244,000 searches of the Flock automated license plate reader technology in 2025. Those searches played a part in “advancing 361 cases.”
That is an outrageous 99.852% rate of ineffective searches.
The police also disclose that the cost of the system will be over $2 million this year — $2,012,500.
A 99.852% ineffective rate means city leaders will spend $2,009,521.50 on license plate reader technology that does not help any case."
Re: Flock license plate readers cost city big, deliver little
#3[deleted]
Re: Flock license plate readers cost city big, deliver little
#4$2 million a year to run 244,000 searches that advanced 361 cases... That's about $5,500 per useful search.
Meanwhile every car that drove past one of those cameras got logged, timestamped, and stored. These things aren't not law enforcement, they're mass surveillance with a badge.
Re: Flock license plate readers cost city big, deliver little
#5$2 million a year to run 244,000 searches that advanced 361 cases... That's about $5,500 per useful search. Meanwhile every car that drove past one of those cameras got logged, timestamped, and stored. These things aren't not law enforcement, they're mass surveillance with a badge.
>These things aren't not law enforcement, they're mass surveillance with a badge.
That sounds like ChatGPT.
Re: Flock license plate readers cost city big, deliver little
#6$2 million a year to run 244,000 searches that advanced 361 cases... That's about $5,500 per useful search. Meanwhile every car that drove past one of those cameras got logged, timestamped, and stored. These things aren't not law enforcement, they're mass surveillance with a badge.
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Re: Flock license plate readers cost city big, deliver little
#7So Flock helped solve a case nearly every day of the year?
Re: Flock license plate readers cost city big, deliver little
#8So Flock helped solve a case nearly every day of the year?
Maybe! We don't know, all we know is that allegedly:
> Those searches played a part in “advancing 361 cases.”
What does "played a part" mean? What does "advancing a case" mean?
Re: Flock license plate readers cost city big, deliver little
#9"In San Diego police’s February 2026 Annual Surveillance Report, the department discloses that officers conducted more than 244,000 searches of the Flock automated license plate reader technology in 2025. Those searches played a part in “advancing 361 cases.” That is an outrageous 99.852% rate of ineffective searches. The police also disclose that the cost of the system will be over $2 million this year — $2,012,500.…
This is a flawed methodology for measuring success.
Solving a case isn't a single correct search. It's a tool, and a single case could have hundreds of searches associated with it.
As more regulation comes in, as it should, we should get much better auditing data that link each and every search to a specific case. This is evolving quickly at the moment, but ultimately it's up to the public to begin to push for requirements like these.
Currently departments do not necessarily require a case number, as many times a case number has not been created yet.
I think a more fair method to measure success is look at how effective each dollar spent on LE accounts for the whole picture. How much more effective did ALPR make each officer/detective on the force? Generally speaking, these are force multipliers and are much more effective than spending on pure body count. Many departments cannot fill seats even if they wanted to.
Re: Flock license plate readers cost city big, deliver little
#10"In San Diego police’s February 2026 Annual Surveillance Report, the department discloses that officers conducted more than 244,000 searches of the Flock automated license plate reader technology in 2025. Those searches played a part in “advancing 361 cases.” That is an outrageous 99.852% rate of ineffective searches. The police also disclose that the cost of the system will be over $2 million this year — $2,012,500.…
This is a flawed methodology for measuring success. Solving a case isn't a single correct search. It's a tool, and a single case could have hundreds of searches associated with it. As more regulation comes in, as it should, we should get much better auditing data that link each and every search to a specific case. This is evolving quickly at the moment, but ultimately it's up to the public to begin to push for requir…
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