Evidence & Public Records
The strongest argument is the one readers can verify for themselves. This library prioritizes government policies, official reports, procurement material and public records.
San Francisco ALPR fact sheet — August 2026
Camera count
SFPD's 2024 annual report listed approximately 300 ALPR cameras, excluding mobile units, and said total deployment was expected to reach 400. This is a dated figure, not a claimed current count.
Vendors / systems
The 2024 report identifies Flock ALPR, Motorola/Vigilant ALPR and Thomson Reuters CLEAR ALPR.
Ordinary retention
The approved SFPD policy says NCRIC advises 12 months from capture, with longer paths for some investigative, intelligence and evidentiary records.
FY 2024–25 reported cost
SFPD reported $350,000 in one-time installation costs and $1.2 million in annual recurring software costs.
Funding
SFPD's annual report says its reported FY 2024–25 ALPR costs were funded entirely through the State of California retail-theft grant.
Current search safeguards
The January 2026 directive requires a law-enforcement purpose and a CAD entry, incident report or documented reason for searches, and describes restrictions on federal, out-of-state, immigration and reproductive-rights use.
What we are not claiming
We are not presenting the 2024 approximately-300-camera figure or the planned 400-camera figure as San Francisco's exact current active-camera count. We are not presenting the non-binding Flock procurement quote as proof that every quoted camera was installed or every quoted dollar was paid. We are not combining ALPR systems operated by other San Francisco departments into an SFPD camera count without evidence supporting that conclusion. We are not claiming that every ALPR record is deleted after 12 months when the approved policy contains longer investigative, intelligence and evidentiary retention paths.
Primary San Francisco sources
-
SFPD Flock Safety rollout — Department Notice 24-052.
SFPD states that an organized-retail-theft grant funded a network of
hundreds of Flock Safety ALPR cameras throughout San Francisco, with
installation beginning March 19, 2024.
View the SFPD notice → -
SFPD ALPR Data Searches — Department Notice 26-011.
The current January 2026 directive describes access, search justification,
auditing and restrictions on federal, out-of-state, immigration and
reproductive-rights use.
View the current SFPD directive → -
SFPD Chapter 19B surveillance policies and reports.
SFPD publishes approved surveillance technology policies and annual
reports, including ALPR reports for 2022, 2023 and 2024.
View the surveillance policy library →
SFPD 2024 ALPR Annual Surveillance Report
This is one of the most useful primary-source snapshots of San Francisco's ALPR program.
- Approximately 300 ALPR cameras were reported at the time, excluding mobile units; total deployment was expected to reach 400.
- The report identifies Flock ALPR, Motorola/Vigilant ALPR and Thomson Reuters CLEAR ALPR.
- The Department reported $350,000 in one-time installation costs for FY 2024–25.
- It reported $1.2 million in annual recurring software costs.
- It says those FY 2024–25 costs were funded entirely through the State of California retail-theft grant.
- The report says ALPR data was shared with the San Francisco District Attorney's Office and numerous California law-enforcement agencies.
- At that reporting point, SFPD reported no internal audit of the technology.
Approved ALPR surveillance policy
The approved SFPD ALPR policy describes authorized use, access controls, data sharing and retention. It states that NCRIC advises ordinary ALPR retention of 12 months from capture while establishing longer retention paths for some investigative and evidentiary records.
400-camera Flock procurement quote
A City procurement packet contains a Flock Safety budgetary quote for 400 Falcon cameras.
- $1,200,000 annual recurring Flock platform cost
- $335,000 in listed implementation fees
- $1,535,000 year-one subtotal
- $3,935,000 quoted contract total
The document itself says it is a non-binding proposal for informational purposes and is not an invoice. Those figures therefore describe the quote, not necessarily final payments.
SFPD's own effectiveness claims
We do not claim that ALPR never helps police.
In an April 9, 2025 announcement, SFPD said its Real-Time Investigation Center had assisted in more than 500 arrests and that 207 of those arrests used the Flock ALPR network.
That is SFPD's reported result, and it belongs in the evidence record. The policy question remains whether those investigative benefits require creating searchable location records of the much larger population of drivers who are not suspected of wrongdoing.
Catch the bad guys. Don't track anybody else.
ALPR is broader than SFPD alone
San Francisco's March 2026 citywide surveillance-technology inventory lists approved ALPR-related policies for multiple City departments, including SFPD, SFMTA, the Airport, Public Works and Recreation and Park.
Those systems do not necessarily have the same purpose, configuration, retention policy or access rules. DeFlock San Francisco will not combine them into a single police-camera count without evidence that supports doing so.
What we are still verifying
We are continuing to research the current number of active ALPR cameras, current contracts and recurring costs, platform-by-platform retention, current sharing relationships, audit results and any material changes since the most recent published annual report.
Historical or planned camera figures will not be presented as a current camera count unless the evidence supports that conclusion.
Request more records
Useful ALPR requests can include contracts and amendments, purchase orders, invoices, camera inventories, deployment lists, retention settings, sharing-network lists, audit logs, search statistics, policy revisions, training material and correspondence concerning access or configuration.
San Francisco also operates under the California Public Records Act and the City's Sunshine Ordinance. SFPD's published materials direct members of the public to its Public Records Request Portal for official records.
Have records we should review?
If you have a contract, invoice, policy, response to a public-records request or other source material concerning ALPR or related surveillance technology in San Francisco, send it to us.