Surveillance Watch Benicia

← All documents

Chief,

File: no subject-Redacted.pdf Request: PR-2026-181 Sent: 2026-06-18 00:00:00 +0000 UTC Type: document Size: 237 KB OCR'd image-only scan

View the original PDF →

6/18/20264:08:00PM
Sent:
From:
To:
Cc:
Bcc:
Importance: Normal
Subject:
Chief,
I have investigated the concerns reported about the Flock data sharing between the Western
States Information Network (WSiN) and the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center
(NCRiC). It's important to note that both organizations receive state funding and work with
local state and federal agencies.
In this instance, WiSN had two analysts assigned to NCRIC as part of the fusion center, like a
task force. These two analysts believed they were doing their jobs when they accessed and
shared informationwith out of state and federal agencies.They were aware they could not
share or search for any data related to reproductive investigations or immigration investigations,
but they did not fully understand the restrictions on any out of state or federal sharing due to
SB34.Although Benicia cameras were included in some of these searches that were
conducted for out of state agencies or federal agencies (DEA), none of their inquiries or
searches were related to immigration or reproductive rights. The searches they shared were for
Homicide, Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), Drug trafficking (Fentanyl) and other serious
criminal investigations. They provided clear reasons for each inquiry.
We have clear expectations of the agencies we share our data with and NCRlC has a signed
MOU with Benicia. The upside to this story is that the auditing process works and discovered a
training and personnel issue within NCRIC. NCRIC did not make an intentional decision to
violate the MoU. They had two analysts assigned to their fusion center that had not been
properly trained to completely understand SB34 and its restrictions. This knowledge gap
resulted in a violation of policy and SB34. Transparency is not the absence or misuse or
mistakes. Instead, transparency is the surfacing of misuse or mistakes so we can better
decisions or perhaps, an employee may violate policy. We have systems in place to identify
these instances and address them when they appear. Flock has systematically improved upon
the system to make it easier to identify instances of abuse or misuse. Without these systems in
place, this audit likely would not have discovered this issue. SFPD certainly could have done a
better job with their press release and explaining what actually happened.

Public Records Exemptions Enclosed please find a copy of the response documents for your public process employed to review and produce the response documents. Reason Description Pages 1 of 1