Following months of criticism, Stanford has stopped contracting Flock Safety and switched to Genetec as its provider of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs).
The University aimed “to be both responsive to community concerns about privacy and safety as a result of issues related to Flock, but also balancing that with providing resources to the Department of Public Safety,” said Vice Provost for Institutional Equity, Access and Community Patrick Dunkley.
ALPRs are cameras that take pictures of cars and record metadata, including license plate information. Stanford had partnered with Flock since 2024 through the Department of Public Safety (SUDPS).
Genetec spokesperson Andrew Elvish said that features such as watermarks on the screen and blockchain technology prevent the accidental or intentional misuse of ALPR data.
“Life is a series of trade-offs, right?,” said Elvish. “So we trade certain degrees of anonymity and privacy for security.”
Both Flock and Genetec track cars’ color, make and model. Under the Genetec system, Stanford says its ALPR data will not be accessible by third parties.
“We landed on Genetec Cloudrunner in part because their system met the data security issues that we thought [were] important,” Dunkley said.
Another difference is the length of time that data is stored on the cloud. While Flock keeps license plate information for 30 days, Genetec will only hold data in the cloud for an hour before it is transferred to Stanford’s own servers, according to the Stanford Report. It is not clear how long data will remain on Stanford’s servers.
The decision follows the circulation of a petition calling on the University to end its contract with Flock. The petitioners argued that the cameras violated privacy rights, and have collected over 1,000 signatures since May.
“The collection of this detailed data, held by a private company with documented privacy abuses, creates a mass surveillance state in a time of egregious federal government behavior,” the petition reads.
Stanford’s termination of their contract with Flock follows similar terminations in recent months. This February, Santa Clara County banned the use of Flock cameras by the county sheriff. While Stanford’s Department of Public Safety is deputized by the county sheriff, it did not end its contract with Flock when the policy was put in place.
Flock Safety markets its cloud sharing functionality, which allows law enforcement agencies to search each other’s databases. But the feature may be accidentally enabled. Mountain View’s police department ended its contract with Flock in February after realizing data had been shared with hundreds of law enforcement agencies, allegedly without the city’s knowledge.
Elvish described the process of enabling data sharing as non-trivial. “We make it something that you have to intentionally want to do,” he said.
Critics have also pointed to the use of local law enforcement’s Flock data by federal agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Flock Safety does not have a current contract or partnership with ICE, but allows for customer discretion to share their data with the agency. This means a local law enforcement agency or city, as Flock’s customer, is able to share their Flock data.
Genetec was previously the subject of its own controversy after the nonprofit Justice Beyond Borders/Justice for Iran accused it of partnering with companies that provided services for the Iranian government. This would have been a violation of guidelines from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the nonprofit believed.
Genetec denied doing business in Iran. After a review by Canada’s OECD dispute resolution contact point, the allegation was determined not to warrant further consideration.