Livermore
ALPR program.
What Livermore's own records say about its automated license plate reader program, checked against those records on 17 October 2026.
Documented stated in the record (click to open it) · Calculated our arithmetic from documented figures (hover or tap to see it) · Unknown not established by any record we have.
What is an ALPR? What is Flock?
An Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) is a camera system that captures license plates and vehicle information and makes those observations available for computer-assisted searching. Livermore Police says it uses Flock Safety technology, runs retroactive searches to solve crimes after they occur, and uses real-time alerts on hot-listed vehicles.
Two ALPR systems, not one
Documented · Policy 460 ↗ Livermore's ALPR policy does not describe a Flock-only program. Policy 460, as revised 9 September 2026, lets authorized users search or retrieve ALPR information "through Flock or Motorola," and sets separate query requirements for each system. Its audit section requires a list of the partner agencies that receive data through both Flock Safety and Motorola.
Documented · 2025 report ↗ Documented · Flock portal ↗ LPD's 2025 ALPR Annual Report lists 78 ALPR cameras. Livermore PD's Flock transparency portal, updated 17 October 2026, lists 148 total active cameras: 75 Flock ALPR cameras and 73 non-Flock cameras it describes as "ALPR capable" traffic cameras.
What we have not verified: Unknown which Motorola product Livermore uses, how many of the 73 traffic cameras actually read plates, and how Motorola-system data is retained and shared. A product's existence is not proof of how a city uses it, so we will report those facts only when records establish them.
Livermore keeps ALPR data for at least a year
Documented · Policy 460 ↗ Policy 460.6 says ALPR data downloaded to the server should be stored for a minimum of one year, then purged unless it is, or may become, evidence.
Documented · 2025 report ↗ Documented · Flock portal ↗ The other records point the same way. LPD's 2025 ALPR Annual Report says data is deleted within one year unless it becomes evidence, and the Flock transparency portal lists a retention period of 365 days. The wording differs ("minimum" in the policy, "within one year" in the report), but all three describe roughly a year of searchable travel history.
In August 2026, Flock announced it would lower its recommended default retention from 30 days to seven days. A vendor default is not a local policy. Existing customers keep the periods their jurisdictions approved, and as of 17 October 2026 Livermore's portal still listed 365 days.
Our campaign position: seven days is still seven days too many for people suspected of no crime. Livermore's written minimum of one year is far longer than Flock's newly announced default.
What does “deleted after X days” actually mean?
A stated retention period normally describes how long ALPR data is kept under the system's ordinary retention policy. It should not automatically be interpreted to mean that every copy of the data becomes permanently and irretrievably destroyed when that period expires.
When litigation is pending or reasonably anticipated, potentially relevant information may become subject to a litigation hold, suspending its ordinary disposition. Investigations, evidentiary requirements, subpoenas and other lawful preservation requirements may also result in particular information being retained beyond the normal retention period.
Electronic information may also exist in more than one place: production systems, backups, replicas, exports, investigative files, evidence repositories, or copies previously provided to another agency. Deleting a record from the primary ALPR system therefore does not, by itself, establish that every copy has ceased to exist or that no recoverable copy remains.
The public deserves specific answers:
- What exactly happens when the stated retention period expires?
- Is the information removed from a searchable database, or actually destroyed?
- Are backups, replicas and exported copies also deleted?
- What happens to information already shared with another agency?
- What circumstances suspend ordinary deletion?
- How long can information subject to a litigation hold, investigation or evidentiary requirement remain?
- Can information described as “deleted” remain technically recoverable?
- Who independently verifies that deletion actually occurred?
- What technical standard determines when the data is considered irrecoverable?
- Who bears the cost of auditing and verifying that process?
It is a rule governing ordinary disposition.
When you tell the public “30 days” or “one year,” what exactly happens on day 31 or day 366?
An important distinction: This does not mean that every deleted record must always be recovered or produced. Preservation and production obligations depend on the facts, applicable law, relevance, accessibility, proportionality, legal control, court orders and other circumstances. The narrower point is that expiration of an ordinary retention period does not, by itself, establish that the information no longer exists, cannot be recovered, or cannot be preserved longer when a legal obligation requires it.
Recording happens before any suspicion
Documented · Policy 460 ↗ Documented · 2025 report ↗ Policy 460 defines a detection as the system reading any license plate in public view, along with the date, time and location of the read. LPD's 2025 annual report says the technology operates continuously. Every passing vehicle is recorded first. The policy's safeguards apply later, when someone searches.
Documented · Policy 460 ↗ Those safeguards are worth knowing:
- Before a Flock query, an authorized user must enter an offense type, a case or CAD number and a reason (460.5.3).
- Access is logged by name, date and time (460.5.3).
- An alert must be confirmed and visually verified before any enforcement action (460.5.1).
- ALPR data may not be used to enforce infractions or minor vehicle-code violations (460.5.4).
The photograph isn't the issue. The searchable history is.
Correction: Earlier versions of this site said Policy 460 states that reasonable suspicion or probable cause is not required before using an ALPR. They linked that claim to a document that was actually LPD's 2025 ALPR Annual Report. The sentence does not appear in the current Policy 460 (revised 9 September 2026), so we have removed it.
The surveillance denominator
What the system finds matters. So does how much routine travel it records in order to find it.
unique vehicles detected in 30 days
Livermore PD search sessions in the same 30 days
unique vehicles recorded per LPD search session
hotlist hits in the same 30 days
The figures above are a rolling 30-day snapshot from Livermore PD's Flock transparency portal, updated 17 October 2026. Separately, the 2025 ALPR Annual Report lists 225 stolen-vehicle hits, 23 felony-vehicle hits and 84 calls for service generated from ALPR information. Those annual outcomes cover a different period, so we do not divide one by the other.
What records would complete the picture
Unknown For a single period, ideally calendar 2025, the public record does not yet show:
- Total plate reads and unique plates recorded
- Searches by LPD and by partner agencies
- Alerts, verified alerts and false or non-actionable alerts
- Stops, arrests and recoveries attributable to ALPR
Policy 460.7 already requires a quarterly audit memorandum to the Chief of Police. Each memo must cover the reasons for access, the sharing-partner list, partner-agency searches by month, training and query compliance, and findings from the "Flock AI" tool. Those memos are a natural public-records request. We have not verified what the Flock AI tool does in Livermore.
California is actively enforcing the sharing restrictions
In October 2025, the California Attorney General sued the City of El Cajon, alleging that its police department unlawfully shared ALPR data with numerous out-of-state law-enforcement agencies. The Attorney General asked the court to declare the practice unlawful and order it stopped.
This does not establish that Livermore has committed the same violation. It does show that California's ALPR sharing restrictions are an active enforcement issue rather than a theoretical concern.
Follow the money: what's documented and what isn't
- Documented ceiling · Council minutes ↗ $815,000 not-to-exceed. Resolution 2025-088 authorized the second amendment to the City's agreement with Flock Safety for license-plate-reader camera expansion. The Council approved it 5–0 as part of the Consent Calendar on 9 June 2025. A ceiling is a maximum, not money spent.
- Documented · City CIP ↗ $55,000 in FY 2025–26 for capital project PS201722, Automated License Plate Readers, funded from Asset Seizure – County rather than the general fund. The project page says it will increase the number of ALPR systems, with remaining installations including the downtown core after the L Street Garage is completed.
- Documented · City CIP ↗ The same project page states there will be no additional O&M costs for the project.
- Unknown Actual payments to Flock to date, any Motorola costs, and the staff time Policy 460 requires: annual training, quarterly audits, dispatch confirmation of alerts and the annual report.
The contract price is not the total cost of ownership. See why on the home page →
SignalTrace: research, not a Livermore deployment claim
Leonardo's ELSAG SignalTrace is a separate signal-intelligence product that can collect and correlate identifiers emitted by consumer electronics with LPR observations. We have no verified evidence that Livermore has deployed SignalTrace. It is included here to educate readers about surveillance capabilities that exist in the market—not to attribute that product to Livermore.