The San Francisco Democratic Party voted on Wednesday to continue its support for Flock surveillance cameras, which are in widespread use across the city but have come under scrutiny nationwide in recent months.
Flock cameras scan license plates; some argue that they help law-enforcement investigations, while others say the information can be misused.
Two major resolutions were in front of the party’s 31 members — 13 of whom were absent — on Wednesday. One, written by former District 4 supervisor Gordon Mar, called for the city to impose increased guardrails for Flock’s automated license-plate readers, and to consider suspension of its contract with the city.
The other, written by committee chair Nancy Tung and District 6 supervisor and former police spokesperson Matt Dorsey, asked the group to affirm its trust in the city’s existing use of Flock cameras.
Elsewhere in the Bay Area, city governments have turned off their Flock cameras and taken steps to cancel their contracts in the wake of reports that these cameras have been repeatedly accessed by outside federal and state agencies without local authorization.
At Wednesday’s San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee meeting, a majority voted to reject Mar’s resolution and pass Dorsey’s. Dorsey’s measure received 11 votes in favor, 4 votes abstaining, and only 3 against.
Both sides acknowledged that the city’s Flock camera data was illegally accessed more than 1.6 million times in 2024 and 2025, with lots of those searches reaching out-of-state agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
And, more recently, the San Francisco Police Department admitted around 300 out-of-state illegal searches had happened in the last year.
Supporters of Mar’s resolution saw threats to the city’s data security. Supporters of Dorsey’s said that they felt the benefits of Flock cameras outweighed the risks.
“I’ve got some real concerns about privacy,” said committee member Patrick Boileau. “I’ve got some real concerns about surveillance. But I’ve also got some concerns about crime.”
Mar raised another concern: Two of the committee’s current members — Lily Ho and Trevor Chandler — work for Flock. Last month, the San Francisco Standard reported that a prior version of Mar’s resolution was removed from the party’s agenda by a subcommittee chaired by Ho.
Neither Ho nor Chandler offered to abstain from voting on Wednesday. Even without their votes, it would have passed.
The committee does not have rules related to conflicts of interest for issues like this one, Tung told Mar. They then proceeded to count both Ho and Chandler’s votes.
In this matter, the San Francisco Democratic Party has little formal power. Its resolutions, at best, influence other party members.
In February 2027, however, the Board of Supervisors may decide whether to renew the city’s Flock contract. Supervisors Connie Chan and Bilal Mahmood, who are on the committee but were absent Wednesday, could weigh in at that time.
Great. This tops their handling/mishandling of sexual harassment. The reign of the SF Democratic Party has turned predictably rancid, or “moderate” according to ML. Time to resurrect the SF GOP. That party has a ton of “moderate” billionaire support, but can they possibly be as corrupt, hypocritical and stupid as SF Dems? Probably.
“We know there’s been illegal activity and we don’t care.” People to need to wake up and start holding these clowns accountable.
Time to shun the SF Democratic Party and support only the neighborhood ones. That Chandler and Ho didn’t abstain from voting whether it would’ve passed or not is exactly why this organization is a joke.
We need to park cameras outside the houses of these Democratic Party officials. No privacy for them.
This is a microcosm of the national Drmocratic party. It’s no wonder the Dems are losers on the national stage.
This article and many of the reporting on this matter neglects to mention that independent journalists and engineers across the country have uncovered these camera’s much more sinister uses beyond simply reading license plates. It’s reported that these cameras are actively using facial recognition to track pedestrians, detecting your phone’s signature via bluetooth thereby linking your digital footprint to your face and daily movements, and if you see what looks like a microphone, these cameras are also listening to us. I do appreciate calling this technology what is it, surveillance. The people overwhelmingly do not want this.
Time to clean house on the current Dem committee and elect some people who are actual progressives. Not beholden to billionaire tech bros who paid for these cameras and not to elect billionaires as mayor.
SF needs an opposition party.
Clearly it can’t be the Republicans, so who will it be?
DSA and Greens both have toxic national leadership, no matter how good some of their members are, so that’s not ideal. Working Families? Peace and Freedom? Something new?
Heather Cox Richardson often talks about how one-party rule leads to corruption. We need some credible organized opposition in this town ASAP.
It’s no wonder DSA wins are surging. With Dems like these, who needs Republicans?
“That’s one helluva an act you got there. What do you call it?”
“The Democrats.”
Sir or madam —
I see what you did there.
JE
People are so caught up in “Trump & Epstein” that they are blindly falling for the democratic politicians’ distractions while they steal all our tax money and then tell us that it’s “Trump’s fault because he went to Epstein Island” and the only way to fix it is to take more tax money from us and then we will get “free healthcare”.
They are making Trump seem like he’s not so bad now, compared to their antics. Telling us how Trump is “stealing our democracy” while selling out to Flock. Watching Newsom take $20 billion for High Speed Rail and not having anything to show for it, and it doesn’t connect any major cities so no one will want to go to Bakersfield… They want to go between *San Diego, LA, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle. Total failure by Newsome and again, all he says in response is: “Trump is bad”
The charade is over
I left the DNC this year. I’m done with this “moderate” democrat crap. It’s like, “oh, we’re billionares and centi-millionaires, and we got rich using our family and the same loopholes that make republicans rich, so we just need to make sure the system stays the same.”. For 35yrs I’ve been a democrat. For about 20 I’ve donated to the DNC (and now get a zillion texts every week). I’m absolutely done. I’ll donate to *people* I respect, but this party and their sycophantic behavior to the “moderates”.
I always feel better after reading comments on MissionLocal from normal people after spending time reading SF Standard stories/seeing their main clientele talk about how they don’t care if Flock invades our privacy because the ends justify the means.