Push To Install License Plate Readers Comes Amid Questions About How Data Are Shared

Since its creation much than a period ago, nan Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting has been successful nan lamppost business and small else.

But successful caller months, nan little-known metropolis agency has recovered itself pulled into a fierce statement complete L.A.’s narration pinch Flock Safety, a surveillance exertion institution that has been criticized for supplying information utilized to alteration nan Trump administration’s migration crackdown.

In L.A., Flock operates dozens of automated licence sheet readers, which let authorities to scan for vehicles that person been reported stolen aliases are registered to known fugitives, search their movements passim nan city.

The devices are often mounted connected municipal ray poles, which makes nan Bureau of Street Lighting responsible for their installation.

Reports that Flock has shared licence sheet information pinch national authorities, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, person prompted dozens of mostly smaller cities crossed nan state to end their relationship pinch nan company. But successful L.A. it still has recovered willing customers, including nan LAPD.

Hundreds of emails obtained by The Times done nationalist records requests uncover really LAPD boosters, homeowner associations and elected officials person engaged successful a months-long run to unit nan Bureau of Street Lighting to velocity up installations of nan sheet readers.

Flock, headquartered successful Atlanta, said that it contracts pinch astir 5,000 U.S. rule enforcement agencies nationwide, and that its exertion complies pinch a California rule that limits what accusation tin beryllium shared pinch national authorities. A institution spokesperson said that Flock’s exertion is “built astir transparency, accountability, and section control.”

“Our customers ain and power their data, which is deleted aft 30 days by default,” nan spokesperson, MoMo Zhou, said successful a connection to The Times. “Our level includes safeguards for illustration audit trails to thief guarantee accountability astatine each step. Every day, Flock supports communities crossed nan state successful addressing crime and locating missing people.”

The Bureau of Street Lighting, pinch 177 labor and a comparatively humble fund of $49.4 million, would look an improbable subordinate successful nan broader statement complete constabulary surveillance. It is chiefly tasked pinch repairing and fortifying nan city’s much than 210,000 streetlamps — a predominant target of copper ligament thieves — and maintaining its web of electrical conveyance charging stations.

The push to put up much sheet readers has travel amid calls for greater transparency astir nan Los Angeles Police Department’s dealings pinch Flock. In March, nan Police Commission asked nan section to study back connected what accusation nan company’s scanners cod and share. In caller months, nan committee declined to o.k. donations of Flock cameras.

Members of nan Stop LAPD Spying Coalition held a news convention to definitive guidance to Flock Safety, a licence sheet reader, up of a Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners gathering connected March 3, 2026.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The committee ordered its inspector wide to behaviour an audit of nan LAPD’s usage of licence sheet scholar technology, pinch nan findings expected to beryllium released successful nan summer.

Recently, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado introduced a mobility urging nan committee to “refrain from entering into immoderate caller Memoranda of Understanding, Contracts, aliases different Agreements, aliases instrumentality immoderate aviator programs pinch Flock Safety aliases its affiliates.” LAPD officials said past period that nan metropolis attorney’s agency has been moving connected drafting up a general statement pinch Flock.

Behind nan scenes, though, nan unit to activity pinch Flock has been ratcheting up from different assembly offices and organization groups.

When a typical from Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky’s agency emailed nan streetlighting bureau urging speed, she received a consequence that said nan installation process shouldn’t beryllium rushed because immoderate metropolis ray poles can’t support nan weight of a Flock reader, which is usually powered by a star panel.

“The past point we request is to person a rod autumn onto personification aliases thing if location are precocious winds,” nan bureau’s Clinton Tsurui wrote successful nan June 4, 2025, email.

In different exchange, Tsurui expressed vexation pinch a workfellow who had offered what he thought was an overly optimistic timetable for installing caller sheet readers.

He wrote: “smh, promising things we can’t do is going to drawback up pinch america 1 day.”

The Los Angeles Police Foundation, a nonprofit group that has agelong bankrolled instrumentality for nan LAPD and offered different support, has criticized delays successful installing nan Flock devices. Last year, nan instauration facilitated nan aid of dozens of Flock cameras, astir of which ended up successful affluent neighborhoods connected nan city’s Westside and successful nan San Fernando Valley.

Records show that successful May 2025, Dana Katz, nan foundation’s executive director, reached retired to nan mayor’s agency pinch a petition to waive licence and rental fees associated pinch installing nan caller readers. Katz wrote successful an email that nan other disbursal of astir $2,000 per instrumentality were “cost prohibitive and detrimental to nationalist safety.”

Katz besides pointed retired that successful immoderate places, location are nary city-owned poles connected which to equine nan devices — but offered a imaginable solution.

“Flock has its ain rod that has been accepted by nan County of Los Angeles for these situations, and we would for illustration nan City to judge nan usage of them, too,” she wrote to Robert Clark, nan city’s then-deputy politician of nationalist safety.

A fewer of L.A.’s historical streetlights guidelines extracurricular nan Bureau of Street Lighting’s agency adjacent Virgil Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Katz wrote Clark again connected Aug. 6 to inquire why officials were estimating a six-to-12-month hold for support of caller Flock readers connected nationalist spot successful nan neighborhoods of Cheviot Hills and Brentwood Park, wherever location were nary existing metropolis poles to equine them. She noted that nan county’s engineering section had already approved nan company’s poles, and asked Clark whether location was a measurement for nan metropolis to “piggyback connected these different entities’ approvals successful bid to velocity this up truthful that these neighborhoods don’t person to hold truthful agelong for thief successful preventing these location invasions?”

In nan pursuing weeks, Katz’s emails took connected an progressively urgent tone. In 1 of her past messages, email records show, she told an adjutant she expected much thief than nan mayor’s agency was offering.

“With each owed respect, nan answers you person provided are wholly generic and do not supply immoderate guidance and guidance arsenic to really we tin expedite this process,” she wrote.

She added: “I’ve said it before, and I will opportunity it again — these delays are harmful to nationalist safety.”

A spokesperson for nan mayor’s agency told The Times that yet neither Clark nor nan adjutant intervened connected nan Los Angeles Police Foundation’s behalf.

Email records show Flock’s courtship of nan bureau dates astatine slightest to outpouring 2024, erstwhile nan institution agreed to donate 2 of its sheet readers to thief combat copper thefts.

Tsurui emailed LAPD Capt. Celina Robles to opportunity that nan company’s executives had requested an in-person gathering pinch nan bureau and nan LAPD “to talk nan benefits of this merchandise and really it tin use nan metropolis moving forward.”

On June 24, 2024, a lobbyist from nan D.C. patient Modern Fortis emailed Bureau of Street Lighting Executive Director Miguel Sangalang seeking to “explore a public-private partnership” betwixt Flock and nan city. Sangalang took different gathering to talk Flock a fewer months later pinch erstwhile City Councilmember Joe Buscaino, who aft leaving City Hall had gone to activity for Ballard Partners, a powerful Florida-based lobbying firm.

In January 2025, aft wildfires devastated Pacific Palisades, Altadena and different areas, Flock stepped successful again. The institution agreed to donate much than 50 sheet readers, free of complaint for six months, to nan able Palisades area, wherever residents and rule enforcement officials were connected high alert astir potential theft.

A Flock Safety automated licence sheet scholar successful Costa Mesa.

(Courtesy of nan metropolis of Costa Mesa)

In nan days and weeks that followed, metropolis and constabulary officials continued to capsicum nan bureau astir speeding up nan support process.

On Jan. 21, 2025, records show, Cmdr. Randall “Randy” Goddard of nan LAPD’s Information Technology Bureau wrote streetlighting officials to opportunity that nan Palisades organization “could usage a large favour from your department.”

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell “fully supports this and has been moving pinch nan City Attorney’s agency to finalize nan terms,” Goddard wrote.