From: Hamilton Hitchings
To: Council, City
Cc: Reifschneider, James; Perron, Zachary; Shikada, Ed
Subject: Flock Audit Scope - Requesting 6 Additions
Date: Friday, August 21, 2026 10:13:07 AM
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links.
I support OIR’s proposed ALPR audit scope. Many residents have raised legitimate privacy concerns about Flock. I’m asking the City Council and PAPD to make six specific questions explicit within the audit.
Under Section 2, Internal Access and Appropriate Use, please add:
1. Review prohibiting PAPD from searching historical travel data for traffic citations, infractions, other low-level offenses, and exploratory use.
Under Section 3, Data Sharing and External Access, my biggest concern is outside- agency searches. Palo Alto plates are searched up to 200,000 times a month, often through partner-system searches that may include minor offenses. A traffic stop should not expose someone’s travel history. Flock recently added offense-specific filters, which PAPD is reviewing.
2. Review the outside-agency search settings and recommend how searches can be limited, as narrowly as practical, to felonies, sex crimes, and narrowly defined crimes of regional concern, such as organized retail theft.
Under Section 4, Data Retention and Storage, Flock now defaults new customers to seven days.
3. Review the impact of reducing Palo Alto’s retention period from 30 days to 7 for data not preserved for a specific investigation.
Under Section 7, Policy, Procedures, and Oversight, the public search logs are useful but need more detail.
4. Review adding the offense type by name to Palo Alto’s online search logs.
Finally, under Section 9, Best Practices and Benchmarking, I’m asking the audit to evaluate Genetec as an alternative vendor that, to date, does not carry Flock’s history of privacy controversies and access problems. Stanford recently switched to Genetec, which can keep data on Sheriff-controlled servers.
5. Conduct a paper evaluation of Genetec as an alternative to Flock, comparing security architecture, cost, capabilities, and tradeoffs, and consulting with Stanford about its experience.
6. Evaluate switching Palo Alto’s cameras to Genetec while retaining Flock only at Stanford Shopping Center to preserve access to regional Flock searches.
These six requests fit directly within OIR’s proposed framework. I’m asking Council and PAPD to make them explicit in the audit.
From: Jennifer Landesmann
To: Council, City
Subject: In support of 6 Additions to Flock Audit Scope and use of ALPRS Date: Saturday, August 22, 2026 4:47:29 PM
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links.
Dear Council,
As some of you may recall, we invested a lot of thought and consideration, as a community, to adding cameras and license plate recognition. My neighborhood Crescent Park is one of the neighborhoods that sought this tool to support the efforts of our PAPD. With a resource that the community worked hard to establish, my overriding concern is that if you take anything away that helps the police, we will need more resources such as more patrols.
Our household personally had a licence plate theft, and my neighbor's and my car window were blown to pieces - which is nothing compared to the persistent vandalism that became rampant at one point. One family in the neighborhood had their Catalytic converter stolen 3 times in one year but the thieves stopped stealing once the city installed Flock. Every report seems to confirm that ALPR is an effective tool - as a crime deterrent; to investigate; and when used collaboratively with our northern California local law enforcement partners. Per this PAO article "Police Chief James
Reifschneider told the council in June that the department has pinpointed more than 130 cases in which Flock has played an important evidentiary role in identifying and arresting suspects. He also noted that the city has seen a 13% reduction in residential burglaries and a 24% reduction in auto burglaries between 2025 and 2026." Every case of recovering a stolen vehicle, or helping residents when faced with a crime or crisis relies on this tool. Not to mention it supports elderly residents feeling safe (myself included as the years pass), as well as to preserve safety for our youth.
I support Hamilton Hitchings' suggestions to Council, and hope that there will be no neglect or deterioration in what can be achieved with these tools. Thank you, Best,
Jennifer
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Hamilton Hitchings <[email protected]
>
Date: Fri, Aug 21, 2026 at 10:12 AM
Subject: Flock Audit Scope - Requesting 6 Additions
To: City Council <[email protected]
>
Cc: James Reifschneider <[email protected]>, Zachary Perron <[email protected]>, Ed Shikada <[email protected]> I support OIR’s proposed ALPR audit scope. Many residents have raised legitimate privacy concerns about Flock. I’m asking the City Council and PAPD to make six specific questions explicit within the audit.
Under Section 2, Internal Access and Appropriate Use, please add:
1. Review prohibiting PAPD from searching historical travel data for traffic citations, infractions, other low-level offenses, and exploratory use.
Under Section 3, Data Sharing and External Access, my biggest concern is outside- agency searches. Palo Alto plates are searched up to 200,000 times a month, often through partner-system searches that may include minor offenses. A traffic stop should not expose someone’s travel history. Flock recently added offense-specific filters, which PAPD is reviewing.
2. Review the outside-agency search settings and recommend how searches can be limited, as narrowly as practical, to felonies, sex crimes, and narrowly defined crimes of regional concern, such as organized retail theft.
Under Section 4, Data Retention and Storage, Flock now defaults new customers to seven days.
3. Review the impact of reducing Palo Alto’s retention period from 30 days to 7 for data not preserved for a specific investigation.
Under Section 7, Policy, Procedures, and Oversight, the public search logs are useful but need more detail.
4. Review adding the offense type by name to Palo Alto’s online search logs.
Finally, under Section 9, Best Practices and Benchmarking, I’m asking the audit to evaluate Genetec as an alternative vendor that, to date, does not carry Flock’s history of privacy controversies and access problems. Stanford recently switched to Genetec, which can keep data on Sheriff-controlled servers.
5. Conduct a paper evaluation of Genetec as an alternative to Flock, comparing security architecture, cost, capabilities, and tradeoffs, and consulting with Stanford about its experience.
6. Evaluate switching Palo Alto’s cameras to Genetec while retaining Flock only at Stanford Shopping Center to preserve access to regional Flock searches.
These six requests fit directly within OIR’s proposed framework. I’m asking Council and PAPD to make them explicit in the audit.
From: Aram James
To: City Attorney; Dave Price; [email protected]; Vicki Veenker; Gennady Sheyner; Emily Mibach; Shikada, Ed; Braden Cartwright; Diana Diamond; <[email protected]>; Preminger, Steve; Sean Allen; Council, City; Reifschneider, James; Brandon Pho; EPA Today; [email protected]; Board of Directors; Jeff Rosen; Carla Torres; [email protected]; Supervisor Susan Ellenberg; Supervisor Otto Lee; Supervisor Betty Duong; [email protected]
Subject: Conflict OIR and flock surveillance technology?? Date: Sunday, August 23, 2026 12:39:40 PM
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links.
here’s my best-supported answer
If your question is:
“How many cities/counties has OIR Group recommended using ALPR/license-plate- reader technology?”
I can currently substantiate 3 jurisdictions where OIR has had a documented substantive role concerning ALPR:
Vallejo, Eureka and Palo Alto.
But I can substantiate 0 where OIR specifically recommended Flock Safety.
If you ask:
“How many jurisdictions have both OIR Group and Flock Safety?” The number is higher than 3. Santa Rosa, for example, clearly belongs in that category. There are additional jurisdictions that need to be checked against contracts and OIR records rather than simply assuming OIR recommended the technology.
One potentially important lead
I also found that in Palo Alto, OIR’s contract was separately associated with the city’s ALPR technology contract management work. A 2023 council agenda lists both an OIR Group contract amendment and an Office of City Auditor task-order change specifically identified as “ALPR Technology Contract Management.”
That deserves a deeper look because it may tell us exactly when OIR became involved with Palo Alto’s ALPR procurement/oversight and what its scope was.
And there is a broader surveillance-oversight context: in 2025, Michael Gennaco was participating nationally in discussions about how civilian oversight bodies should handle surveillance technologies including ALPRs, drones, gunshot detection and real-time video networks.
My current evidence map is therefore:
Flock recommendation by OIR: 0 confirmed
ALPR-specific OIR involvement: 3 clearly documented
OIR + Flock jurisdictions: more than 3
OIR recommendation later used by a government entity to justify Flock: 1 — Vallejo And importantly, I have not found evidence of OIR Group receiving money directly from Flock Safety or being a Flock vendor/consultant. The contracts I’ve located are between OIR and the municipalities/agencies, not between OIR and Flock.
If you’re investigating a possible institutional relationship between Gennaco/OIR and Flock, the next thing I’d examine is Palo Alto’s OIR contract and the ALPR contract- management records, followed by Santa Rosa’s OIR/Flock contracts. Those are likely to tell us much more than the published OIR reports.