civic
ACLU sues San Diego to end police use of Flock license plate cameras
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, argues the city’s automated license plate readers violate Californians’ constitutional right to privacy.
The ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties sued the City of San Diego and the San Diego Police Department on Wednesday, Sept. 30, seeking to end the city’s use of Flock automated license plate reader cameras.
The ACLU is representing the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, or PANA. The suit argues that the city’s network of license plate readers violates the right to privacy in Article 1 of the California Constitution, and asks the court to stop the program, end the related contracts, remove streetlight cameras that function as plate readers and delete the stored data. ACLU Legal Director Frederick Carroll and PANA’s Homayra Yusufi spoke for the plaintiffs; PANA raised concerns about data reaching federal immigration authorities.
SDPD and the City Attorney’s Office declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. SDPD Lt. Kristopher McAndrew told FOX 5 that the cameras help officers locate wanted suspects and missing people.
The program has divided city leaders. KPBS reports a split City Council kept the contract funded during the 2026 budget process, and that SDPD stopped sharing plate reader data with federal authorities in 2025 after guidance from the California Attorney General.
How this story was made: drafted with AI assistance, then checked line by line against the sources below by a San Diego Insight editor before publishing. Our standards.
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