Overview
- Filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court on Nov. 18, the lawsuit from EFF and the ACLU of Northern California represents SIREN and CAIR-CA and names the City of San José, Mayor Matt Mahan, and Police Chief Paul Joseph.
- The complaint targets San José police searches of Flock Safety’s stored ALPR records, arguing that querying a year of location data from roughly 474–500 cameras violates the California Constitution.
- Cited metrics include 361,494,941 scans in 2024 with 923,159 hotlist hits (about 0.2%), and 261,711 SJPD database searches between June 5, 2024, and June 17, 2025, with 3,965,519 total searches when outside agencies are included.
- Plaintiffs say long-term logs can reveal visits to clinics, places of worship, and immigration services, chilling Muslim, immigrant, and other marginalized communities, and they ask the court to mandate warrants for such searches.
- City officials defend the program as important for public safety and say privacy safeguards and regular deletions exist, as broader scrutiny of ALPR data sharing continues across California.