In this article, Berkeley Speaks gives more detail to the issues raised in the Editorial.
First, it is important to know about several laws that Berkeley has passed over the years: the Surveillance Ordinance, the Sanctuary Contracting Ordinance, and the new Sanctuary City Ordinance.
The Berkeley Surveillance Technology Use and Community Safety Ordinance governs the use of surveillance technology by the city, while the Sanctuary City Contracting Ordinance (SCCO) prohibits city contractors from assisting federal immigration enforcement, and the Sanctuary City Ordinance (2025) is a broader set of city policies that restrict law enforcement and city employees from helping federal immigration agents and guarantees access to city services regardless of immigration status. The new Sanctuary City Ordinance codifies and strengthens longstanding City of Refuge policies that by adding public reporting requirements and a clearer prohibition on sharing protected personal information.
When
Flock cameras: one scandal after another
A long-brewing controversy has centered on Berkeley’s contract with Flock Safety Inc., under which Flock stores images and videos of private cars on Berkeley streets. In May, 404 Media reported on “more than 4000 national and statewide lookups by local and state police done either at the behest of the federal government or as an ‘informal’ favor to federal law enforcement or with a potential immigration focus.” According to the San Francisco Standard, “Under a decade-old state law, California police are prohibited from sharing data from automated license plate readers with out-of-state and federal agencies.”
The city council felt that the risk of contracting with Flock was worth taking in the hopes that it could help solve crimes. They also trusted Flock’s assurance it does not give data to ICE without a warrant.
In late August, the controversy escalated into a train wreck when Flock was forced to admit that it had lied, and in fact it had pilot programs directly with ICE. For many community members at the September 9 city council meeting, this revelation called into question how meaningful the city government’s stated commitment to Sanctuary really was. The council suspended consideration of a new Flock contract until they can figure out some kind of appropriate resolution.
In addition, troubling information has come to light about the existing BPD contract with Flock Safety. This contract covers automated license plate reader (ALPR) images in three locations. An internal BPD audit found three instances between January and June of this year, in which unnamed external police agencies conducted immigration-related searches in the Flock database. One search was for “ICE” and two were for “CBP” (Customs and Border Protection).
This breach of Berkeley’s Sanctuary City Contracting Ordinance is reported in the city management’s required Annual Surveillance Technology Report. The section on Flock ALPRs is on pages 37 to 45.
In addition, this contract authorizes Flock to share Berkeley’s data with any third party, at Flock’s discretion.
November 10 is the public’s next opportunity to comment on this Flock contract, whether from the perspective of violations of the Sanctuary principle or about the expansion of mass surveillance.
UC informs on its own students
the president of the University of California ordered the UC Berkeley campus to turn over to Trump’s Department of Education the names of 160 students, staff, and alumni whom it suspected of antisemitism under an extremely broad definition that includes criticism of the State of Israel. Many in the campus community feel concerned about both violations of their privacy and a general chilling of dissent and academic freedom. Are we in an unstoppable return to the witch hunts of the McCarthy era? See our article in this issue of Berkeley Speaks, at ___.
Police drones are coming
Along with the expanding network of street cameras, Council Member Terry Taplin has proposed that the city council direct the city manager to make a plan for the city to begin using drones for the first time, including for policing. On October 10, his proposal passed through the council’s Public Safety Committee, and will go next to the Police Accountability Board, and then to the council. Neither of those meetings is yet scheduled.
The Taplin proposal would begin the process of acquiring and using “Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), including Drones as First Responders (DFR).” The proposal states: “More advanced models of deployment—such as DFR—enable drones to be autonomously dispatched from pre-positioned locations in response to 911 calls, often arriving before human responders and streaming live video to dispatch and field units.”
Even CM Taplin recognizes that “these tools are not without risk. Improper or unregulated use could lead to violations of privacy, disproportionate surveillance of marginalized communities, disruption to wildlife, or erosion of public trust.”
The Taplin proposal is notably vague on the intended usage of drones. The closest it comes is to describe drones as “emerging as tools with the potential to significantly enhance public safety operations, emergency response capabilities, and resource efficiency…. Early conversations (in Berkeley) have identified applications for multiple City departments, including disaster response, infrastructure inspection, and environmental monitoring.” It does not specify whether the drones would be managed by the police department. The stated goal of the proposal, instead, is to ask city management to propose a policy on future use of drones.
What have opponents said?
When the Police Review and Peace and Justice commissions jointly conducted research on drone policy in 2013, they persuaded the council to establish a one-year moratorium on police use of drones.
The commissions found that technical limitations and legal restrictions made use of drones for humanitarian purposes, such as disaster and rescue purposes, impractical in Berkeley. They also stated, “history shows that high-tech equipment in the hands of a military-like force without effective civilian oversight is prone to abuse and mission creep.”
Peace and Justice further noted that “due to the extremely sophisticated and invasive capacities of drones such as ‘sense through the walls,’ their use appears to be electronic surveillance on a par with wiretapping, for which the Supreme Court requires a search warrant under the Fourth Amendment, but warrant requirements are not clearly established for drone monitoring.”
In January 2016, the Peace and Justice Commission recommended that the city council “makes permanent the one-year moratorium on police acquisition and/or use of drones, including through mutual aid.”
The ICE connection
Adding to the concerns about privacy expressed a decade ago, the use of drones worries those who study patterns of collaboration with immigration authorities. According to John Lindsay-Poland of the American Friends Service Committee’s California Healing Justice Program, “Drone footage retained in the cloud has a significant risk of being hacked or used by federal agencies, including ICE.” Very little information about data storage is available in the Council proposal, but the City of Fremont, which in 2024 approved the deployment of drones as First Responders, provides this online response to questions about external access to videos and photos taken by drones:
“Our data is encrypted and is stored on US-based servers that meet federal requirements for confidential law enforcement databases.”
This statement is similar to Berkeley’s arrangement with Flock Safety for fixed ALPR and camera footage. Regardless of promises from a data storage provider, any offsite “cloud” storage may be subject to confiscation by Immigration or other unaccountable agencies.
The upcoming process
A referral from Council to the city manager has a double meaning. On the surface, it is simply a request to develop some “what-if’s.” For example, “Suppose we acquire drones, what should we use them for?” So, the proponent can say to community members with concerns about a proposal, “don’t worry, it’s just a referral, any implementation of drones would depend on a second vote.”
While it’s true that the referral will not be the final vote, such a referral has a second meaning: signaling that the council approves of buying and using drones. It is a statement of intent, and it would be very hard to “ground” those drones once Council approves the referral. The best time to raise concerns about this new technology is in this current referral process (both at the upcoming PAB meeting in November or December, and then at the city council’s decision meeting, probably early in 2026).
Major IT provider Center Square refuses to sign Sanctuary pledge, gets waiver from the City
On October 28, the Berkeley city council granted a waiver to the Sanctuary contracting ordinance to Superion, a software provider owned by Center Square LLC, because it cannot promise not to do business with ICE. The best that city management could negotiate is for Superion to let the City know if they begin supporting immigration enforcement. Community members urged the city administration to begin searching for an appropriate replacement vendor.
Other City of Berkeley contracts with companies working with ICE
Berkeley has long-standing contracts with several police-related companies, all of which work with ICE:
- WestLaw for legal research software
- Axon supplies BPD with body-worn cameras and possibly ALPRs and less-lethal weapons.
- Motorola supplies police and radio systems
AC Transit dodges a bullet
A significant breach of Sanctuary was narrowly avoided at the beginning of September: a staff proposal at AC Transit, which serves Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, for a $533,000 contract with ICE. The funds from ICE were to be used for additional police officers. The grant could have required AC’s involvement in “border crisis response and enforcement support.”
To Berkeley’s credit, four members of the city council including the mayor successfully urged AC to abandon the grant application. The question remains, what is it in the culture, or politics, of some government officials including at AC Transit and the City of Berkeley that can allow them to pursue these unacceptable, illegal collaborations?