Fullerton Police Department
Fullerton City Council – September 15, 2026
Flock ALPR Program
The Flock ALPR Program in Fullerton Produces Vehicle Leads, Not Personal Profiles
WHAT IT DOES
Captures still photos of license plates and vehicle attributes visible from public roads.
Compares plates with authorized hotlists to generate investigative leads.
Capture video.
Use facial recognition, biometrics, names, DOBs, SSNs, addresses, or DMV identity data.
Continuously track people, issue traffic citations, or predict who will commit a crime.
Immigration enforcement, traffic enforcement, harassment or intimidation, usage based solely on a protected class, and personal use are expressly prohibited.
WHAT IT DOES NOT DO
What Our Officers See
How We Use ALPR: Detect → Verify → Investigate
None of our officers act on a plate read alone — human verification is required at every stage.
STEP 1
Detect
The camera captures a plate and vehicle characteristics in public view. →
→
→
STEP 2
Check
The system checks authorized alert sources such as stolen vehicles and AMBER / Silver Alerts.
STEP 3
Verify
Our officer verifies the plate, state, vehicle description, and circumstances.
STEP 4
Investigate
If relevant, the result is one lead among many; we preserve evidence through normal procedures.
How Our Officers and Detectives Use ALPR
REAL-TIME RESPONSE
As vehicles enter the City, the cameras create objective vehicle observations.
Alerts help our officers respond to stolen vehicles, wanted vehicles, and other authorized public-safety alerts such as missing persons.
POST-INCIDENT INVESTIGATION
Our detectives can search for vehicles connected to an in-progress or reported crime.
Regional network access helps our detectives follow vehicle movement across participating California jurisdictions and businesses — subject to the sharing permissions and policy we control.
Fullerton’s Flock ALPR Program
17 + 2
CAMERAS
17 fixed cameras plus 2 mobile cameras in our current deployment. ~$236,000 across equipment, subscriptions, repairs, and maintenance. 5 yrs
OPERATING HISTORY
We installed our first Flock cameras in January 2021.
30 days
RETENTION WINDOW
Our data is automatically and permanently deleted after 30 days unless preserved as evidence.
PROGRAM TIMELINE
2007 City Council approval of grant-funded ALPR (UASI) 2019 Vigilant Solutions deployment in Parking Enforcement vehicles as part of the Downtown Paid Parking Program 2021 Flock LPR added under Chief Dunn through use of ARPA Funds with the CCTV project Now Flock and Vigilant both utilized by FPD
There are 135 active FPD users
We Own and Control Our Flock ALPR Data
We own and control our Flock ALPR data; Flock is our technology provider and does not own or sell customer data.
Sharing is not automatic — we control our sharing relationships and authorization under our governing policy and agreement.
Third parties and private customers receive no access to our law-enforcement data without our authorization.
Our 30-day retention window is our policy decision, not an indefinite vendor archive.
Partner
agency
Partner
agency
Partner
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FULLERTON
PD
We permission and authorize all sharing — connections are not automatic A full, current list of all agencies granted access to Fullerton PD ALPR data can be found on our transparency portal:
https://transparency.flocksafety.com/Fullerton-ca-pd
Our Safeguards Make Misuse Visible and Reviewable
Named user
Every search in our system is tied to a named user, timestamp, plate, network, time frame, and filters. →
Reason & case #
A documented reason and standardized offense type are required; case number is captured when entered. →
Permanent log
Audit records outlive the image-retention window and cannot be quietly erased.
All system access is stored indefinitely.
→
Supervisor review
Audit Assistance flags unusual patterns for our supervisors to review.
Organization Audit
How are authorized FPD users utilizing the system?
Network Audit
What agencies are accessing FPD data?
Fullerton PD Flock Organization Audits
Organizational Audit
Historically has been conducted annually, recently updated to QUARTERLY.
The Property Crimes Supervisor completes the audit; it is reviewed by the Support Services Captain.
Any misuse and/or suspicious activity shall be sent to Internal Affairs for an investigation.
System Automatically Flags Abnormal Behavior for Review When a user searches beyond a 30-day timeframe.
When a single user runs the same plate multiple times.
Broad or unusual geographic searches.
Personal or sensitive information searches- ie. Vehicle associated with public officials, celebrities, or other individuals where legitimate law enforcement purpose is not apparent.
Fullerton PD’s ALPR Program Operates Within California’s Legal Guardrails SB 34
Governs ALPR use, security, and sharing
A written, publicly posted usage / privacy policy
Authorized purposes and users; training; oversight
Sharing rules and retention / deletion requirements
Accuracy, responsible-party rules, and auditable access SB 54
Limits federal / out-of-state sharing
Limits cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
California agencies cannot share ALPR data out of state or with federal agencies for prohibited purposes.
Based on current Flock platform documentation, federal agencies are excluded from statewide/nationwide lookup and immigration-related search filters are locked where enabled.
Fullerton PD Policy 428: Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) 428.2 POLICY: The policy of the Fullerton Police Department is to utilize ALPR technology to capture and store digital license plate data and images while recognizing the established privacy rights of the public. All data and images gathered by the ALPR for the official use of this department. Because such data may contain confidential information, it is not open to public review.
FPD Policy 428 is publicly available to view here (Fullerton PD CA Policy Manual): https://www.cityoffullerton.com/government/departments/police/about-fpd/policies-procedures
Fullerton PD’s ALPR Program Predated SB 34
2007
ALPR program established
November 20, 2007 City Council approved a grant-funded ALPR system through UASI.
Fullerton PD began operating ALPR before SB 34 took effect.
JAN 1, 2016
SB 34 effective
Fullerton PD’s ALPR program was already in place.
SB 34’s public-comment language applies before implementing an ALPR program; it does not expressly address retroactive re-approval of a pre-2016 program. 2021
Flock added as technology provider
Fullerton PD added Flock ALPR
The department continued its existing ALPR program and public-safety purpose.
The 2021 action was a vendor addition, not implementation of a new ALPR program.
FULLERTON PD’S POSITION
Because our ALPR program was already operating before SB 34 became effective, our 2021 addition of Flock ALPR did not constitute implementation of a new ALPR program.
SB 34 does not expressly require a second public-comment meeting solely because an existing ALPR program changes or adds vendors.
The California DOJ guidance does not create a vendor-change trigger; it explains that SB 34 does not address pre-2016 programs.
WHAT STILL APPLIES TODAY
Maintain a written, publicly available ALPR usage-and-privacy policy.
Maintain reasonable security procedures and access records.
Govern authorized purposes, users and training, audits, sharing, accuracy, retention, and deletion.
Bottom line: Fullerton PD had ALPR before SB 34. In 2021, we changed technology providers—we did not launch a new ALPR program.
In 2021, Fullerton PD added a technology vendor to an ALPR program that was already operating—not a new ALPR program.
Fullerton PD’s ALPR Program Success
Recovered 85 stolen vehicles
Located XX missing persons
Made XX arrests
Unique Vehicles Detected
Number of unique plate reads over the last 30 days.
885,246
Number of Hotlist Hits
Total hotlist hits over the last 30 days.
4,053
Fullerton PD Flock Transparency Portal
https://transparency.flocksafety.com/Fullerton-ca-pd
Fullerton Data- since Flock
Recovered 274 stolen vehicles
Located 18 missing persons
National Flock ALPR Program Success
Recovered 85 stolen vehicles
Located XX missing persons
Made XX arrests
Flock National Data
Platform-wide (2025)
Flock reported contribution to locating more than 10,000 missing people; 27 missing people located every day.
Flock technology supported more than 1,000,000 investigations.
Assisted in approximately 20% of solved cases.
National Vehicle Theft
A recent independent national study of 216 law-enforcement agencies reported an 11% reduction in vehicle theft, and a 15.9% increase in vehicle theft clearances by arrest after Flock cameras installation.
Fullerton Vehicle Theft
There has been a 6% increase in vehicle theft recovery, after Flock cameras installation in Fullerton.
Our Regional Context: Nearby Agencies Reviewed and Continued Their ALPR Programs Anaheim
Costa Mesa
Orange
Garden Grove
Buena Park
Placentia
Yorba Linda
FULLERTON
Orange County
Anaheim — Added 72 ALPRs
Costa Mesa — Reviewed and chose to keep its cameras after the misuse incident became public.
Orange — Renewed its program.
CSU Fullerton is said to be operating 46 cameras on and around campus while transitioning to Axon.
Orange
24 other Orange County Agencies use Flock for ALPR,
2 use Vigilant
Questions?