Richmond police chief shuts down license plate readers after discovering data was searchable

Richmond’s incoming police chief shut down the city’s automated license plate reader system two weeks ago after it was discovered that the data had accidentally been made searchable earlier this year by outside agencies searching for a complete license plate number.

Richmond police said in a press release Tuesday night that there’s no evidence any outside agency actually accessed or misused the city’s data.

The data exposure occurred because a feature allowing the information to be nationally searchable was enabled on the city’s system, according to newly appointed Chief Tim Simmons, who told Richmondside he recently learned of the issue.

The system has been offline since Simmons, who was announced last week as the successor to outgoing Chief Bisa French, learned of the situation.

“The moment I found out about this issue, I shut it off completely,” Simmons said, noting he immediately notified the Richmond City Council.

Sources close to the department said a non-sworn employee was first notified by the reader data company, Flock, in February that the administrative two-way data sharing feature was active. That employee immediately had the feature disabled and reported it to a supervisor, who apparently retired without passing the information up the chain of command.

“The fact that it was made available was outside the scope of what we’ve been telling people and what has been told to us (by Flock),” Simmons said. “So that was enough for me to shut the whole system down.”

Richmond has contracted for the $1 million-a-year service with Flock since 2023 and, in January 2025, expanded the contract by $1 million to add drone technology and gunshot and tire screeching detection. The city also contracts with Flock for video surveillance services, such as cameras in public places, which do not compile data from the images and will remain online.

Three council members dissented from expanding Flock contract last January

In the past, Flock representatives have told the city council that the system isn’t accessible to outside agencies — a concern of several city council members, including Mayor Eduardo Martinez and Districts 5 and 6 council members Sue Wilson and Claudia Jimenez, who expressed concern about the Georgia-based company’s ability to comply with the city’s sanctuary policy, ultimately voting against expanding the contract. It was ultimately approved, with council members Jamelia Brown, Cesar Zepeda, Doria Robinson and Soheila Bana voting in favor of it.

The current Flock contract is set to expire this February.

A week after the vote to expand the contract, Martinez, who attended a march last February to support the city’s undocumented community, said he wanted to revisit the contract due to concerns that the company wouldn’t keep data inaccessible to federal agencies.

Wilson told Richmondside Tuesday that her main reason for voting against expanding the contract in January was the threat of it being accessed by outside agencies. She said the potential breach was “predictable.”

“I just have no confidence that the Flock corporation is going to keep this information private,” she said. “I knew this not because I’m some kind of security expert but because I googled Flock and read that the main reason they are popular is because of the interoperability.”

The national search feature was presented during training as a way for Richmond detectives to search other jurisdictions’ open databases using complete license plate numbers, sources told Richmondside. What Flock failed to disclose was that activating the administrative feature would be a two-way street, making Richmond’s data searchable by agencies nationwide if those agencies had a complete license plate number.

Simmons said that the cameras are an important crime-solving tool, crediting them with helping police close cases in 12 homicides since its implementation in April 2023, and leading to 272 arrests during that same time period. Simmons said there was an armed carjacking last weekend where the shutdown has hampered its investigation — a type of incident he said that would normally generate leads through the ALPR.

“I want our department to be able to leverage technology in a manner that protects our immigrant community, that protects the rights of all of our residents and aids in building trust with the police department,” Simmons told Richmondside. “Part of what I am really frustrated and angry about with Flock is we work really hard to build trust with our community and we know that it can be fractured in a moment.”

Simmons also noted that California Assembly Bill 54 prohibits agencies from sharing ALPR data outside California, making Flock’s feature particularly problematic. 

Jimenez said that Simmons expressed in his communication to the council a desire to make safety for all Richmond residents a priority.

“He has told us that what is more important for him is the safety of the community and this (use of Flock) seems like it is violating the community’s safety and trust,” Jimenez said.

Richmond’s ALPR data is automatically deleted after 30 days, according to Simmons. In total, according to the city’s ALPR transparency portal, there has been data from 431,658 vehicles recorded in the last 30 days.

Simmons said he’s researching other vendors as potential replacements for the ALPR system.

Both Wilson and Jimenez applauded Simmons for his decision to cut off the license plate cameras.

“I want to emphasize and appreciate how much that the police department and Chief Simmons are coming forward to admit that there’s a problem,” Wilson told Richmondside. “It’s a really big deal and I really appreciate that commitment to transparency.”

In the press release, the department emphasized its commitment to using technology “responsibly and transparently” and said the cameras would remain off.

“The system will remain offline until verified safeguards are in place to prevent similar issues,” the press release said.