Remove Flock Safety License Plate Cameras from Roseville, CA
Target: Roseville City Council, Roseville Police Department, Chief of Police

Nothing to Hide? A Fact-Based Guide to Flock Cameras and the Price of Being Watched​

In one California town (ROSEVILLE), Flock misread license plates in 71% of the alerts it sent to police​

Roseville to continue using license plate readers despite accuracy concerns

Petition Statement:
Roseville is not a small town, and it deserves technology that actually works, not automated surveillance with a track record this poor.

Roseville Police Department's own analysis found that Flock Safety's license plate reader (ALPR) cameras misread license plates in 71% of the 1,427 stolen-vehicle and felony alerts generated between 2023 and 2024. That means only about 29% of these high-stakes alerts, the kind meant to send armed officers after a suspected stolen vehicle or felony suspect, were accurate. Records show one resident was flagged as driving a stolen vehicle six separate times because the system kept confusing a "9" for an "8" on his plate. During one week in April 2025, 16 out of 17 flagged plates in Roseville were completely wrong.

When confronted about the error rate, Flock reportedly suggested drivers remove their license plate frames, a suggestion the department rejected. The problem didn't stop there. Flock has instead blamed Roseville's own camera placement, calling it an "atypical deployment."

A 29% accuracy rate would be unacceptable for almost any technology. It is especially unacceptable when the consequence of a false positive is a felony traffic stop, a car full of officers approaching with guns potentially drawn, or a resident's data being logged and shared through Flock's national network, all without a warrant, and all without the kind of independent verification requirements that states like Montana, Virginia, Washington, and Kentucky already mandate. California does not currently require that verification.

"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" is not a real answer to a 71% error rate. It is not a real answer to a surveillance system that logs the movements of every driver in this city, the innocent and the guilty alike, with no meaningful public oversight, no independent accuracy audits, and no accountability when it gets it wrong.

We call on the City Council and Roseville Police Department to:

Suspend the Flock Safety ALPR program until an independent, third-party audit of its accuracy and safety record is completed and made public.
Adopt a mandatory independent-verification policy requiring officers to confirm any Flock alert through a secondary, reliable source before initiating a stop, matching protections already required in other states.
Hold a public city council hearing on the program's cost, error rate, data-sharing practices, and retention policy, with the findings of the department's internal review made fully public.
Establish real community oversight of any camera-based surveillance technology used in Roseville going forward, including regular public accuracy reporting.
Roseville residents deserve public safety tools that work, not a system that sends officers chasing false leads nearly three times out of four while quietly building a searchable record of where every driver in this city goes.

Sign this petition to demand accountability and oversight for license plate surveillance in Roseville.