Saratoga's 56 automated license plate reader cameras recorded 21,162,945 plate scans over about eight months before the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office was told to stop supporting them, according to the county's annual surveillance report.
The report, which the Board of Supervisors is scheduled to receive at its regular meeting Tuesday, Oct. 20, credits the Saratoga cameras with the recovery of two stolen vehicles, three arrests, one served warrant and "additional investigative leads." The figures cover July 2025 through February 2026.
The sheriff's office polices Saratoga under contract, and it also ran the plate cameras in the two other cities and towns it serves. The report lists 22 cameras in Cupertino and 32 in Los Altos Hills. Cupertino's logged 38,699,901 scans, with seven stolen vehicles and three stolen license plates recovered, nine arrests and five warrants served.
Los Altos Hills' 6,088,767 scans produced investigative leads only, the report says.
Why the count stops in February
The numbers end in February because of a Feb. 24 board vote. The report says supervisors directed the sheriff's office at that meeting to discontinue supporting the contract cities' plate readers.
The board split 3-2 on the change, which KQED reported was aimed at Flock Safety, the vendor all three communities used. Supervisor Betty Duong called Flock "a problematic company" and said its reported handling of private data clashed with county values.
Supervisor Susan Ellenberg voted no for a different reason: she told the board she considers plate readers in general an "excessive invasion of privacy" and that rival vendors are not necessarily safer. A Flock spokesperson said in a statement at the time that the company is proud of its technology's role in solving crimes and finding missing people in the county.
What the cameras collected
According to the report, the system captured plate numbers along with a vehicle's color, make and model and features such as bumper stickers and tow racks. Every search of the data required an authorized user and a case number, the sheriff's office conducted biweekly and monthly audits, and no deviations from the county's use policy were found.
The report says no plate data was shared with outside agencies during the period.
A separate county policy covers plate readers for the county itself. The report says that technology saw no operational use during the year.