Landon Block is a political science senior and the Opinion Editor at Mustang News. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Mustang Media Group.
“Smile, you’re on camera!”
You might see this sign entering a pharmacy or when using self-checkout, but you probably don’t imagine seeing it every time you enter campus. As it turns out, Cal Poly has had 17 Flock Safety cameras, several sporting advanced license plate recognition systems, placed around campus entrances since March 2025, according to documents obtained by Mustang News. The City of San Luis Obispo has had four more around town since 2023, according to San Luis Obispo Police Public Affairs Manager Christine Wallace.
These camera systems might be intended to protect our safety, but they are putting us at risk. They enable enhanced surveillance that can be used to target Cal Poly and San Luis Obispo students, families and visitors. Even just partnering with a company like Flock enables the targeting of similar communities across the country.
Flock’s cameras don’t just record passively. They identify, collect and store information like vehicle license plate numbers, color, make, model and distinguishing features, according to university spokesperson Matt Lazier. The cameras don’t use facial recognition software, but they do capture people alongside vehicles passing through.
The real danger of Flock’s camera system comes with the national license plate recognition network, which allows law enforcement agencies from across the country to access any participating agency’s footage. Cal Poly’s cameras do not participate in this network and have stricter release requirements, according to Lazier. Cameras around San Luis Obispo do participate, according to Wallace.
There have been 406 Flock searches conducted by Cal Poly police from June 2025 through Feb. 3, 2026, according to Public Records Access Officer Kevin Cushing. CPPD has not sent the data to any outside organizations, according to Lazier.
There have been 561 requests sent to the San Luis Obispo Police Department by outside organizations from January 2023 to November 2025, according to documents obtained by Mustang News. These searches came from police departments in California, Nevada, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico and Idaho.
By law, SLOPD isn’t allowed to share any data with agencies outside California, according to Wallace. Still, sanctuary state laws may not protect residents from exposure, previously reported by 404Media, a tech-focused investigative journalism organization.
While Flock claims not to share data with ICE and other federal agencies, 404Media found ICE uses “friendly” local law enforcement to process their requests for them. That means, with the right query, ICE can still search SLO’s streets for their desired license plates.
Here in California, ICE and external law enforcement have allegedly received illegal access to cities’ Flock data, previously reported by ABC 7 and CalMatters. Local police in Mountain View found federal agencies accessed their data even though they didn’t opt in to the national lookup network, previously reported by KQED.
While noble law enforcement may be a valiant goal, ICE’s actions in recent months are anything but just. Cruel raids in the last year ripped longtime community members from their homes and jobs, sent people without a criminal record to a foreign torture center, killed two American citizens and at least 31 more immigrants in ICE custody.
Even if SLOPD wasn’t potentially benefiting ICE, these cameras still introduce enough surveillance to worry residents because they put too much consolidated information in one place. Flock’s proprietary “Vehicle Fingerprint” technology allows more detailed tracking of vehicle details, beyond technology we’re used to seeing.
Flock’s cameras track your movements, schedule and patterns. While they aren’t designed to track people, and there are laws in place meant to prevent this, this very system has shown loopholes in similar situations.
If laws and policies meant to stop ICE and other federal agencies from accessing Flock data can be bypassed, it’s easy to imagine further abuses of power could misuse Flock systems against Cal Poly and San Luis Obispo. We can’t continue supporting such activities, both rhetorically and financially.
CPPD pays Flock $46,500 annually for hardware and software services, according to documents obtained by Mustang News. SLOPD also pays $10,000 per year to fulfill its contract, according to Wallace.
At the very least, Cal Poly and SLOPD need to publicly and loudly make full use of the transparency portal, to accessibly show who is searching for their data and what types of data are included. Cal Poly quietly released its portal in late February, but SLOPD has yet to take similar action. Every student, faculty member, and visitor should know where they can find updates on the surveillance that tracks them every day.
Beyond transparency, it’s time we cut these contracts. Flock isn’t a trustworthy partner and is being exploited to victimize the very communities they claim to make safer. Communities in Los Altos Hills and Santa Cruz have come to the same conclusion and severed ties with Flock after community backlash. Other companies provide similar services that don’t run the same community risk.
I understand this will come at a significant financial cost to Cal Poly and San Luis Obispo. But this cost is tolerable, if not necessary, to prioritize community safety. After all, safety doesn’t just mean catching criminals. It extends to upholding the freedoms and liberties we deserve: protecting our privacy and security, even if it makes it harder to follow cars.
It doesn’t sit right with me to work with Flock at any level. This technology is being misused across the country to unlawfully target our immigrant neighbors. We can’t continue to be complicit in letting it happen to them, and we shouldn’t have to wait until it happens to all of us.