photo credit: Flock
A Flock license plate reader.

The Fort Bragg Police Department this week unveiled a new online portal that allows residents to see how the city's network of seven Flock cameras is being used to combat crime -- in a way that officials say does not jeopardize people's privacy.

  The system detects license plates and vehicle makes and models, but it does not scan for faces, people, gender or race. "We want people to understand these are being used legitimately and lawfully," Fort Bragg Interim Police Chief Eric Swift said. "We don't want people to be fearful and misunderstand our intentions for using these cameras."

  The purpose of the portal is to give residents full access to see how police use data collected from license plates.

  Use of the popular public safety camera system has faced increasing pushback in recent months as the federal government expanded its immigration crackdown, often using license plate data and facial recognition software to track undocumented people.

  Earlier this week, Bay City News reported that the Oakland Public Safety Committee could not advance a $2.25 million contract with Flock Safety after a 2-2 vote. A majority was needed to move the proposed expansion of Oakland's Flock camera system to the City Council for approval.

  Oakland activists rallied against the expansion over concerns that federal law enforcement could use the technology to spy on residents, which they said would violate the city's sanctuary policies.

  Swift said that has never been the intention in Fort Bragg. "California has very specific and strict laws, and we're not sharing this information with the federal authorities for immigration enforcement," he said. He added that the data the city collects is not shared with third parties or federal agencies and is scrubbed after 30 days.

  Fort Bragg installed its first Flock Safety cameras in high-traffic areas in and out of the city in July 2023. "Our cameras are used for cases involving things like stolen vehicles," Swift said. "If there's a title, a plate number or even just a vehicle description connected to a crime -- whether it's a stolen car, a kidnapping, an assault -- our cameras help capture the information tied to that vehicle. They're designed to identify the car involved and place it at the scene."

  Information about such cases is shared between agencies in Mendocino County and throughout California.

  "For example, if a car is stolen in Ukiah and then comes into Fort Bragg, we wouldn't know unless an officer spotted it and already knew we were looking for it," Swift said. "But with the cameras, Ukiah can put that vehicle on a hot sheet, and once it passes one of our cameras, we get an alert immediately -- this plate belongs to a stolen vehicle out of Ukiah, and it's now in our jurisdiction."

  Swift said the new public portal was created to bolster accountability. "The transparency portal lets us show exactly what we're doing with the data, and it allows us to be very clear and transparent with the public," he said.

  The portal can be accessed at http://transparency.flocksafety.com/fort-bragg-ca-pd.