Hercules
Hercules PD didn’t always own its own ALPR cameras — for years it just accessed a shared regional network. By the time a 2022 public records request forced a look at what had changed, the department had become an owner and operator of a 25-camera Flock Safety network feeding a list of outside agencies that stretches well past Contra Costa County. We haven’t yet found the underlying contract or a council vote authorizing any of it.
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Before owning cameras, Hercules PD already had ALPR network access
Responding to the California State Auditor’s statewide ALPR survey, Hercules PD reported it did not operate its own cameras at the time — it only accessed ALPR information through a shared network running on Vigilant Solutions. The department said it had a usage/privacy policy but did not post it on its website, retained non-investigative ALPR data for less than one day, and that 26 of its 40 total personnel had access to ALPR data.
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A CPRA request reveals a 25-camera Flock network, and who else can search it
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, via MuckRock, filed a California Public Records Act request on November 3, 2022, asking Hercules PD for its ALPR data-sharing partners and aggregate usage statistics. The department’s November 14 response — a scanned network “Devices” report plus two data exports — shows Hercules PD itself now listed as Hercules CA PD (25 cameras) with a relationship of Owner — a change from the camera-less, access-only network member it described to the state auditor two years earlier.
The same report lists dozens of other agencies able to search that network, mostly Bay Area police departments, but also a handful of out-of-state municipal departments (Akron OH, Hamilton County OH, Jasper County IN, Milton and Monroe GA, Orange Beach AL, Orange County FL), the NCRIC (16 cameras) regional fusion center, and the USMS (1 cameras) — the U.S. Marshals Service — though we found no other federal law-enforcement agency (no ICE, CBP, FBI, or DEA listing) in this particular report. The two accompanying data exports, which we tallied ourselves, show Hercules’ 25 cameras logged 3,216,061 plate reads and 158 hotlist hits between October 16 and November 14, 2022 — a 30-day window, works out to roughly 39 million reads a year at that rate.
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Program continues; current scale and contract terms still unconfirmed
Hercules PD’s own website still points residents to a Flock Safety transparency portal for its ALPR program, but we haven’t yet found a current camera count, contract, or council authorization on the public record more recent than the 2022 CPRA response above.
Know something we don't?
If you live in or near Hercules and have an update, a correction, or context worth adding — a FOIA response, council document, email, public statement, or just something you noticed or heard about that isn't reflected here — send it to contact@nosurveillancepledge.com with dates and a link or scan where you can, and we'll add it with a source.