Marin County Supervisor Dennis Rodoni wants the county to regularly check how law enforcement uses license plate readers, cameras, records systems and artificial intelligence, and whether those tools are still being used only for what supervisors approved.
In a statement posted on his county web page, Rodoni, whose district includes parts of eastern San Rafael, called for recurring reviews of who can access surveillance data, how it is shared, whether new systems have been connected, and whether each technology still fits its original purpose, the San Rafael Record reported. He said the county needs to "look carefully at technologies like Flock cameras."
Where this started
The statement caps a debate that began in May, when Rodoni pulled a $1.5 million contract with Peregrine Technologies off the Board of Supervisors' consent calendar. As the Marin Independent Journal reported then, Peregrine would build a real-time dashboard combining data from Marin police departments, the sheriff's office, probation and the district attorney, including body camera footage and Flock and Vigilant automated license plate readers. The contract would be paid with state public safety realignment money tied to Assembly Bill 109.
Sheriff Jamie Scardina told supervisors the agencies all run different records systems and called the integration "a game changer" for detectives. Rodoni raised concerns about where the data would go and asked how the county would prevent "function creep," including future links to license plate readers or facial recognition. A Peregrine spokesperson told the IJ the company is not a surveillance platform, does not collect data, and is not affiliated with Palantir, where some of its founders previously worked.
A new county data policy
Rodoni pointed to a new countywide data policy, adopted Aug. 18, as one result of that discussion. According to the county's summary cited by the San Rafael Record, it sorts data into public, confidential and restricted tiers. Proposals to share confidential or restricted data need technical and risk review, and high-risk projects need approval from a Technology Investment Board, followed by an audit no later than 12 months after approval.
"Mission creep seems to be an issue," Rodoni said at the August meeting, noting that camera locations he saw did not match what the board had approved. His latest statement asks the county to make those kinds of checks routine rather than one-time.