Under the $1.67 million agreement with Flock Safety Group Inc., the sheriff’s department will receive 210 additional license plate reader cameras, for deployment in unincorporated communities. (Photo Credit: Flock Safety)
Inland Valley, CA — Police departments across the Inland Empire use Flock Safety cameras to record vehicle license plates and characteristics, then make some of that data searchable by other agencies.
Public sharing lists from Flock’s transparency portals show that access to a city’s camera data can extend well beyond the city that operates the cameras.
Flock transparency portals for the Fontana, San Bernardino, Ontario and Riverside police departments and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office also publish camera counts and identify organizations granted access to each agency’s data.
A place on a sharing list shows permission, not proof that an agency searched the data or viewed a particular vehicle. Each agency controls sharing of its own data, according to Flock.
In portal snapshots updated in July 2026, Fontana Police Department listed 50 cameras, San Bernardino Police Department 28, Ontario Police Department 128, Riverside Police Department 119 and Riverside County Sheriff’s Office 1,769.
Flock labels the figures “LPR and Other Cameras.” They are counts associated with those agency portals, not a count of every surveillance camera each agency operates or a verified inventory of cameras physically inside a particular city or county.
Fontana’s records help explain its figure. A December 2024 City Council report said 15 Flock cameras had been purchased and installed.
A Flock order form dated Sept. 17, 2024, listed 25 Falcon cameras and 10 long-range Falcon LR (long range) cameras under a proposed five-year agreement totaling $642,750.
Those 35 cameras, added to the previously installed 15, equal the 50 cameras later reported on Fontana’s portal. The unsigned order form alone does not establish when each additional camera was installed.
Fontana’s Flock portal lists a substantial group of San Bernardino County organizations as having access to Fontana Police Department data.
They include the Barstow, Chino, Colton, Montclair, Ontario, Redlands, Rialto, San Bernardino and Upland police departments; the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department; Cal State San Bernardino police; San Bernardino Community College police; San Bernardino County Fire Department; and an account labeled “San Bernardino County CA Human Services [Law Enforcement].”
The list also includes agencies elsewhere in California, including the California Highway Patrol and Riverside County Sheriff’s Office.
This does not mean each recipient operates cameras in Fontana or has access to every Flock camera in San Bernardino County.
The county sheriff has its own route into the network. In February 2023, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved a five-year, nonfinancial agreement giving the Sheriff’s Department access to Flock’s platform and images from participating government agencies.
The county report identified operational Flock cameras at the time in Barstow, Chino, Colton, Loma Linda, Ontario, Redlands and Upland.
It did not say those cities all had separate police accounts or disclose every agency whose data deputies could search.
In June 2025, supervisors also approved leases for 55 Flock automated license plate recognition (ALPR) systems to be installed in the unincorporated communities of Arrowhead Farms, Rosena Ranch, Muscoy and Bloomington.
The county said several cities that contract with the sheriff for policing were already using Flock under separate contracts.
The network reaches across county lines. Riverside County Sheriff’s Office listed 1,769 cameras on its July portal snapshot and named numerous California organizations with access to its data, including agencies in San Bernardino County.
A January 2026 Riverside County board item separately approved an amendment for 170 long-range Flock camera subscriptions.
The portals also revealed differences in retention settings, despite Flock Safety reducing its default retention period from 30 days to seven days.
Fontana, San Bernardino, Riverside police and the Riverside County sheriff portals listed 30 days.
Redlands and Ontario listed 365 day retention periods.
These are the periods displayed on their Flock portals; other ALPR systems an agency uses may follow different rules.
Attorney General Rob Bonta says state and local law enforcement agencies may not share automated license plate reader data with federal or out-of-state agencies.
In January 2026, Bonta stated, “California law requires ALPR data to remain within state lines.”
In March, Flock acknowledged that some California camera networks were inadvertently accessible to out-of-state agencies in 2025 and says it has since added controls blocking California agencies from initiating or accepting such sharing.
Those statements do not identify every agency that searched Inland Empire data in the past.
