Leaked Berkeley City Attorney Memo Warns Flock Safety Cameras Could Trigger Millions in Lawsuits

A leaked memorandum from Berkeley's city attorney's office has exposed serious legal risks tied to Flock Safety's surveillance technology, warning that the city could face liability reaching tens of millions of dollars if the council renews the company's contract. The internal memo, disclosed ahead of a contentious contract renewal decision, signals that Flock's technology may be fundamentally incapable of complying with city, state, and federal restrictions on unauthorized data sharing—creating a potential cascade of legal exposure for the municipality.

The city attorney's office outlined multiple vulnerability points: possible violations of citizens' Fourth Amendment privacy rights, conflicts with California sanctuary law, breaches of state regulations governing license plate data sharing, and potential infractions of the California Public Records Act. The memo quantified the financial stakes with precision, noting that penalties could reach $2,500 per camera and per image disclosed—a calculation that could rapidly escalate into eight-figure liability depending on the volume of data involved.

The disclosure places Berkeley's city council under significant pressure as it weighs whether to continue deploying Flock's automated license plate recognition systems. The memo's warnings suggest that the technology's data handling architecture may be incompatible with California's legal framework for surveillance and privacy, raising broader questions about whether other municipalities using Flock cameras face comparable exposure. As local governments across the country expand automated surveillance infrastructure, the Berkeley memo illuminates the growing friction between public safety technology procurement and constitutional privacy protections—potentially setting a precedent for how other cities evaluate similar contracts.