Safety Tool or Privacy Threat?

By Tristan Kaiser
Published: September 4, 2026
Last updated: September 3, 2026
Bird sitting on CCTV camera
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License Plate Readers

Notice those shiny new cameras downtown? They photograph every vehicle that passes, read the license plate, log the make, model, color, and identifying details like dents, roof racks, and bumper stickers, then stamp the footage with a time and location and upload it. These are Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs), often called Flock cameras after Flock Safety, the largest company that makes them. They don’t discriminate against criminal suspects; they log everybody into their database.

Tuolumne County has a couple of routes in and out. Law enforcement now has a running census of who left Sonora when, and how often. Your trip to the clinic in Modesto, your trip to church, and visiting your friend’s house twice this week are now all logged and saved in a database. None of this is anyone’s business, and none of it requires a warrant to collect. Hopefully you are on good terms with everybody now and in the future who has access to the database, as well as the inevitable hackers and Artificial Intelligence agents who will use or leak the data. 

There are ten ALPRs within the Sonora city limits, as well as two Flock cameras in Columbia State Historic Park. Eight are on Washington St., from the bypass to Elkin St. by the Red Church. The other two are on Greenly Rd. between Mono Way and Sanguinetti Rd. According to City Administrator Chris Gorsky, the Sonora Police Department has been operating two non-Flock ALPRs since 2022. He stated that the City has security cameras in and around City Hall, two of which have ALPR capability. He said all City-owned camera information is uploaded to a city network (1).

We do not have to guess where this is headed. These surveillance systems will only expand and get more advanced unless we push back.

Deflock.org, a website devoted to tracking ALPR cameras, now counts 136,791 such devices nationwide (2). And they are increasing daily. They also count 153 cities that have rejected ALPRs (2).

It may be too late for the cities, but perhaps fighting back against the surveillance state is the one thing all Tuolumne County residents can agree on. 

Take Action

  1. Attend the Sonora City Council and Board of Supervisors meetings and voice your concerns or support.
  2. Read the grant that allowed the city to put license-plate readers inside the city limits. 
  3. 3. Read about both sides of the issue. See Reliable Information Sources below.

NOTES

  1. Email communication with Sonora City Administrator, Chris Gorsky, August 31, 2026.
  2. “DeFlock Maps,” DeFlock. 

RELIABLE INFORMATION

  1. Guy McCarthy, “Eyes Everywhere,” The Union Democrat, August 21, 2026.
  2. “Attorney General Bonta Advises California Law Enforcement on Legal Uses and Management of Automated License Plate Recognition Data,” California Attorney General, State of California Department of Justice, October 30, 2023.
  3. “Automated License Plate Readers: State Statutes,” National Conference of State Legislatures, February 3, 2022.
  4. Chad Marlow, “Despite ‘New’ Updates, Flock’s Creepy Cameras Remain Major Civil Liberties Threat,” News & Commentary, ACLU, August 13, 2026.
  5. “Get The Flock Out Toolkit,” ACLU.
  6. Dave Maass, “Data Driven 2: California Dragnet–New Data Set Shows Scale of Vehicle Surveillance in the Golden State,” Electronic Frontier Foundation, April 22, 2021.
  7. “Automated License Plate Readers Privacy and Usage Policy,” Bureau of Automotive Repair, State of California Department of Consumer Affairs, April 28, 2026
  8. Ryan Sabalow, “ ‘Don’t Flock me’: California, U.S. lawmakers debate license plate reader technology,” Politics, Cal Matters, August 3, 2026.