Flock license plate readers cost city big, deliver little

"In San Diego police’s February 2026 Annual Surveillance Report, the department discloses that officers conducted more than 244,000 searches of the Flock automated license plate reader technology in 2025. Those searches played a part in “advancing 361 cases.”

That is an outrageous 99.852% rate of ineffective searches.

The police also disclose that the cost of the system will be over $2 million this year — $2,012,500.

A 99.852% ineffective rate means city leaders will spend $2,009,521.50 on license plate reader technology that does not help any case."

$2 million a year to run 244,000 searches that advanced 361 cases... That's about $5,500 per useful search.

Meanwhile every car that drove past one of those cameras got logged, timestamped, and stored. These things aren't not law enforcement, they're mass surveillance with a badge.

So Flock helped solve a case nearly every day of the year?