Oakley Police Illegally Shared License Plate Reader Data

by CC News 07/17/2026

written by CC News 07/17/2026

The Oakley Police Department will begin implementing a new auditing schedule after a public records request showed it was illegally sharing License Plate Reader Data.

According to Mike Katz-Lacabe, the director of research for Oakland Privacy, he spoke during public comments saying after a recent public records request, he discovered the Oakley Police Department is illegally sharing license plate reader data with border control.

“Sharing license plate reader data with federal and out of state agencies became illegal in 2016 when SB 34 was signed into law,” said Katz-Lacabe. “However, so many law enforcement agencies were failing to comply with the law that the California Department of Justice issued a in October 2023 reminding law enforcement agencies that SB 34 does not permit law enforcement agencies to share ALPR information with private entities, out of state or federal agencies—including, out of state and federal law enforcement agencies.”

Katz-Lacabe also pointed out Oakley Police have a policy for ALPR and that audits should occur regularly. He suggested the audits are either not occurring enough or not thorough enough.

Through public record requests, Oakland Privacy highlighted several other agencies found to illegally share ALPR which included, Source documents:

Danielle Navarro, assistant city manager, confirmed the findings after the public comment was accurate.

According to Navarro, Oakley Police conducted an audit of the Flock and Vigilant data Wednesday morning and found they were sharing data with the San Diego Sector Border Control and another federal agency.

“We removed both agencies’ access this morning,” said Navarro. “We conducted an audit in 2024, and at the time, thought we had removed all out of state agencies to be in full compliance; we missed these dues to the names of the agencies including “CA” at the end making them look like agencies within California. Since we have not added any agencies since 2024, we had not conducted another audit until this morning.”

Navarro confirmed the error saying it occurred due to an audit oversight. They also are unaware how many times data was shared but likely none was shared at all as they do not have any joint investigations with either agency.

According to Navarro, the original audit occurred in 2024 and believed they had caught all prohibited agencies at the time—noting they had not added any prohibited agencies since then which is why there had not been an audit.

The City of Oakley said it would begin implementing an auditing schedule going forward.

Back in 2024, the Oakley City Council voted 5-0 to direct the Oakley Police Department to stop sharing Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) data with out of state agencies. This was in response to a letter the city received from Attorney General Rob Bonta.