Flock cameras & license plate readers in San Francisco, CA
Volunteers have mapped 1,049 fixed license plate readers within 10 miles of downtown San Francisco in OpenStreetMap, and 830 (79%) are tagged as Flock Safety cameras. That puts San Francisco at #5 of the 87 US cities we track for mapped plate readers near the city center. Widen the circle to 25 miles and the count is 2,777. Within 5 miles it's 489.
Who makes them
Manufacturers as tagged by mappers, within 10 miles:
| Manufacturer | Mapped | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Flock Safety | 830 | 79% |
| Flock Group Inc. | 134 | 13% |
| Not tagged | 37 | 4% |
| Flock Safety Inc | 13 | 1% |
| CoStar | 10 | 1% |
| Motorola Solutions | 9 | 1% |
Who runs them
731 of the 1,049 mapped readers (70%) have an operator recorded. 723 are tagged as public (government) cameras and 8 as private, such as store parking lots or HOAs.
- San Francisco Police Department: 429
- California Highway Patrol (CHP): 124
- Daly City Police Department: 33
- Berkeley Police Department: 22
- California Highway Patrol: 18
- Stonestown Galleria Mall: 13
- Brisbane Police Department: 11
- Richmond Police Department: 11
Where they're mounted
Where mappers noted a mount, cameras sit on poles (418), street lights (29), gantry (8) and walls (1). 98% have a mapped facing direction, which our route check uses to estimate whether a camera faces your direction of travel.
Other cameras mapped nearby
- Public/outdoor CCTV: 964
- Traffic-monitoring cameras: 130
- Speed/red-light cameras: 18
Check a San Francisco route
See how many mapped readers sit on a specific drive:
California license plate reader law
Civil Code §1798.90.5 et seq. requires security safeguards, a public usage and privacy policy, access logs, and public comment before an agency starts a program. It bars selling or sharing ALPR data except as the law allows. CHP data is capped at 60 days (Veh. Code §2413). Source: NCSL, Automated License Plate Readers: State Statutes (summary, not legal advice; check the statute itself).
To find out which agencies around San Francisco use ALPRs, search the EFF Atlas of Surveillance or follow our records-request guide. Spot a camera that isn't on the map? Add it via DeFlock.
Nearby city maps
- San Jose, CA: 993 within 10 mi (42 mi away)
- Sacramento, CA: 484 within 10 mi (75 mi away)
All of California → · All city maps → · What are Flock cameras?
Frequently asked questions
How many Flock cameras are in San Francisco, CA?
As of October 29, 2026, OpenStreetMap has 830 Flock Safety cameras mapped within 10 miles of downtown San Francisco, out of 1,049 mapped license plate readers in total. Mapping is volunteer-driven and incomplete, so treat this as a minimum, not an exact count.
Where are the license plate readers in San Francisco?
Open the live map of San Francisco on this site to see every mapped reader as a red dot. Zoom in for street-level positions, and toggle CCTV, traffic and speed-camera layers. Positions come from OpenStreetMap volunteers and may be off.
Is it legal to use license plate readers in California?
Civil Code §1798.90.5 et seq. requires security safeguards, a public usage and privacy policy, access logs, and public comment before an agency starts a program. It bars selling or sharing ALPR data except as the law allows. CHP data is capped at 60 days (Veh. Code §2413). (Summary of NCSL's state-statutes table; not legal advice.)
Can this tell me if my car is being tracked in San Francisco?
No. It shows where mapped cameras are. It can't see whether a camera captured your plate or whether anyone searched for it.
How we count: OSM nodes tagged surveillance:type=ALPR within a straight-line radius of the city coordinates (37.775, -122.419), from the October 29, 2026 snapshot. Circles overlap neighboring cities. Method and limits.
Protect yourself
Shrink the rest of your data trail
Data-broker removal
Private payments
Encrypted connection
All privacy tools and what they do (and don’t) protect →
Disclosure: Some of these may become affiliate links, meaning we could earn a commission at no extra cost to you. That never changes the counts or scores. We list legal privacy tools only. We will never promote plate covers, plate-obscuring products or anything meant to evade police, and none of these tools stop license-plate readers.