A few weeks ago, we filed public records requests with the #Bakersfield Police Department and Kern County Sheriff's Office to see their contracts with #Flock Safety. They're the surveillance company quietly building a massive camera network across the country.
BPD sent us 13 documents this morning. This shit is wild.
## The Hardware
As of May 2025, BPD has 133 cameras deployed. That includes 83 license plate readers logging exactly where your car goes and 40 live-video fixed cameras.
But that isn't the scariest number.
They also bought three Wing Video Integration Gateways. Each one of these boxes can record 128 simultaneous external video feeds. We are talking about piping in feeds from local schools, businesses, and neighborhoods into the police network. All recorded locally and fed straight into Flock's platform.
## The Software
For those of you who aren't aware, Flock calls their platform a "situational awareness operating system". Here is what that actually fucking means.
FirstTwo Connection lets cops click on any nearby building and see the names, ages, and addresses of everyone who lives there, and it drops a link to their phone numbers. Not just the person they are looking for. Their neighbors too.
Convoy Analysis tracks groups of cars moving together. Visual Search lets them hunt for vehicles by physical description across all of their footage. They even wire 911 dispatch directly into the camera system.
Then there is Audio Talk Down. BPD has three Mobile Security Trailers deployed (as of September 2025). These things are wired into a platform that reads your plate, pulls up your personal info, and can broadcast audio directly at you. The city seriously signed a contract for this.
## The Funding
Here is where things get REALLY fun.
A California state program meant to stop organized retail theft funds a massive chunk of this. They sold this to the public as a way to stop shoplifting. Instead, California taxpayers are subsidizing a multi-million dollar mass surveillance network.
Bakersfield locked into a five-year deal paying $430,500 a year through May 2030. That deal has a $3 million spending ceiling. And the contract just links out to Flock's Terms of Service webpage! Flock can literally update the rules whenever they feel like it.
Technology was supposed to liberate us, not put us in a goddamn panopticon.
## What's Next
We still don't have the camera locations, privacy policies, or usage audits. BPD hasn't coughed any of that info up just yet. We're waiting for documents from KCSO, too.
We are not going to stop pulling on this thread.
P.S. We will be posting updates as these CPRA inquiries progress. If you want to stay in the loop, sign up for our (tracker free) newsletter over on our site:
https://anticap.makersfield.co/
P.P.S. Newsletter subscribers will get a link to the documents BPD has sent us when we send out our next issue. 😉
