r/sanramon

I’m a resident of San Ramon, CA and I wanted to bring attention to the increase of Flock cameras around the Bay Area. For those unfamiliar, these cameras are license plate readers that utilize AI to track the make, model, and any other identifiers of your car throughout the cities it is watching. Allegedly, only law enforcement are able to access the cameras and are advertised as “[Bringing] together detection, investigation,and response into one platform, so incidents move from capture to clear, searchable evidence quickly.” 

This sounds great until you realize that “Flock employees, mostly members of their sales team, are regularly looking at both live and recorded footage of us.” (Read more here and scroll down to section 5). The most worrying example, with many more other than this one, is of Bob Carter, Vice President of Strategic Relations and Business Development for Flock, looking into the gymnasium of a preschool.

>“Bob Carter - Vice President of Strategic Relations and Business Development for Flock. Bob spends a lot of time looking through both our live footage and recorded footage. Just since the beginning of last year, he has done this 185 times.

>Bob also has some interesting searches. On September 30th, 2025 - Bob looked at just one camera. This camera is in the gymnastics room of the JCC. I personally am curious about why a sales employee from Flock would be viewing the gymnastics room. I think this also deserves an explanation.

>Live View Camera Searches:

>9/30/25 (Tuesday) - Bob Carter (Flock Safety — VP, Strategic Relations & Business Development)

>2025-09-30 13:20:36 EST - Gymnastics

>One singular viewing that day - no further activity for 7.3 days (next: 2025-10-07 19:40:22 EST - Skate Park #014)

San Ramon, a city with an already very low crime rate, has spent over $1.2 million installing 93 cameras at most major intersections. These cameras are a threat to our privacy and a misuse of our tax dollars. 

Flock is a dangerous surveillance that allows unknown viewers entire access to our every whereabouts. We should not have to live under constant surveillance so law enforcement, or otherwise, can decide to collect all of our whereabouts under one click. Flock is a private company, safe from public audits, government agency laws, and is a clear workaround and violation of our 4th amendment rights.

If anyone would like to join me in removing Flock cameras from San Ramon and the larger Bay Area, or is already part of a group, please PM me and we can create a group to take down Flock one city at a time.

San Ramon has excellent wildlife! Here's a few of my shots of a bobcat. If my watermark breaks any rules, please let me know.