Marin County Sheriff Jamie Scardina laid out the rules governing his department's 31-camera license plate reader network in a community newsletter published Tuesday, July 21, saying the system bars immigration enforcement and federal data-sharing and has never produced a compliance violation in monthly audits.

The newsletter, published via Marinscope Community Newspapers' Substack page, comes as debates over automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology have intensified across California. The LAPD suspended its own Flock Safety cameras on July 11 over concerns about data ownership and sharing.

Scardina wrote that deputies must complete training before accessing the Flock Safety system and can only search it by providing a dispatch call log or crime report number along with a written reason for the query.

"Our data is audited monthly by an analyst for searches that are not in compliance," Scardina wrote. "These audits have never shown a violation of the trust that we put in our Deputies to use this tool."

Beyond internal controls, the Sheriff's Office requires every California law enforcement agency to sign a written data-sharing agreement before receiving ALPR data. That agreement prohibits use for immigration enforcement, personal use, harassment, or inquiries made at the request of federal agencies or agencies outside California.

Scardina also noted that while Flock Safety offers video, audio, and drone services, his office does not use any of them and has no plans to add them.

2025 results

The sheriff cited 2025 statistics showing the ALPR system was used in 354 cases, generating 186 investigative leads, 71 arrests, and 29 additional referrals for prosecution. The cameras also helped locate 12 missing persons and six people experiencing mental health crises.

A recent local case illustrated the technology in action. On Wednesday, July 8, deputies arrested three men suspected of stealing nearly $4,000 in merchandise from the Safeway in Strawberry after using license plate reader cameras to track their vehicle to San Francisco, where SFPD detained them, according to Deputy Stephanie Ware.

Peregrine data-sharing proposal ahead

Scardina announced that later this quarter, the Sheriff's Office, the Probation Department, and the Marin Chief's Association plan to ask the Board of Supervisors to approve a contract with Peregrine, a software platform that would link existing law enforcement databases without creating new data.

The proposal has already drawn scrutiny. Supervisor Dennis Rodoni raised concerns in a June 24 written statement about data governance, privacy protections, and what he called the potential for expansion of surveillance capabilities beyond their original purpose.

Scardina framed the software as incremental. "I see Peregrine as an evolution of all of these systems, not a revolution, as none of the sharing permissions or actual data being collected is changing," he wrote.

No specific Board of Supervisors meeting date has been set for the Peregrine vote. Residents can view the Sheriff's Office ALPR transparency data at transparency.flocksafety.com/marin-county-ca-so.