The San Francisco Democratic Party on Wednesday voted 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.
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 licence-plate readers, a type of camera that scans license plates and helps law enforcement investigations, and to consider suspension of their 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 committee meeting, a majority voted to reject Mar’s resolution and pass Dorsey’s. Dorsey’s measure got 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 ICE — and that more recently the SFPD 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. I’ve got some real concerns about surveillance. But I’ve also got some concerns about crime,” said committee member Patrick Boileau.
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 and Chandler offered to abstain from voting on Wednesday.
Their committee does not have rules related to conflict-of-interest for issues like this one, Tung, who supported both Ho and Chandler, told Mar. They then proceeded to count both Ho and Chandler’s votes.
The San Francisco Democratic Committee has little formal power. Its resolutions, at best, influence other party members.
In February 2027, however, the Board of Supervisors, which includes committee members and Supervisors Connie Chan and Bilal Mahmood, who were absent from the meeting Wednesday, and Dorsey, may decide whether to renew the city’s Flock contract.
