San Mateo is bringing in a second license plate camera company even as it shrinks the list of agencies allowed to see what its cameras collect, drawing pushback from residents who want no plate cameras at all.
At an Oct. 5 meeting, the City Council expanded its existing contract with Axon Enterprise, which already supplies the city's police body cameras, to add automated license plate readers, the San Mateo Daily Journal reported. The eight-year purchase deal starts with a free one-year trial, and payments don't begin until June 2028.
A head-to-head test with Flock
During the trial, police will put Axon readers at the same spots as the department's current Flock Safety cameras and compare the two systems. The department expects to have enough data to pick a vendor within six to nine months, according to the Daily Journal. Police Chief Ed Barberini called the Axon offer a unique opportunity. The new readers cost a little over $1.4 million, bringing the total value of the city's Axon agreements to more than $8.4 million; if kept, the camera contract runs to June 2034.
Councilmembers Nicole Fernandez and Lisa Diaz Nash backed the deal on the condition that the city hold a town hall on the cameras by early next year.
From 280 agencies to eight
At the same time, the police department has sharply narrowed who can tap its data. The number of agencies with access to its license plate information, once more than 280, is now eight, and university police departments have been cut off entirely, the Daily Journal reported. Every remaining agency must sign a sharing agreement, officers now have to enter a case number and search reason, and searches are audited monthly.
The changes track recommendations in an Aug. 3 San Mateo County civil grand jury report. That review of 17 county agencies running more than 580 cameras found most could not document how they controlled in-state data sharing well enough to show they were following the law, according to The San Mateo Record. State law limits plate data sharing to public agencies, and the report raised concerns that local data could reach federal immigration authorities. San Mateo runs 66 plate cameras through its real-time information center, launched in 2024.
Neighbors are going other ways
Police credit that center in part for a 25% drop in property crime and a 20% drop in violent crime from 2024 to 2025. Critics who spoke at the meetings were unconvinced, arguing that switching vendors does not fix privacy risks. Nearby, Redwood City declined to renew its Flock contract after an audit found outside agencies had access to its data, and Half Moon Bay let its Flock deal lapse, the Daily Journal reported.