El Cerrito police say that federal agencies gained access to their Flock cameras without their knowledge. El Cerrito police chief Paul Kieth says when the cameras were first installed in June of 2023 several federal agencies, including the FBI, had access to data from the cameras; when El Cerrito PD took control of the cameras in August of 2023, it limited access to non-federal agencies within California. However, a recent audit by the department shows two federal searches after the department took control: one involving the U.S. Postal Service and the other involving a veteran affairs police department. “The sharing incidents that happened after we took control, those did come as surprise for us,” Keith said. After talking with Flock officials, the chief believes it’s not a widespread problem, and hopes the city will keep using the technology, saying it’s contributed to record lows in crime. “We’ve seen that the issues thar we found don’t seem to be systemic issues with Flock. The most recent incident last year it looks it might have involved some element of human error,” Keith said. Other Bay Area cities are taking a different approach, with Mountain View ending its contract with Flock, citing similar cases of federal agencies accessing data, and San Jose reducing the retention of data from Flock cameras from one year to 30 days. NBC Bay Area reached out to Flock for comment, but no response so far. El Cerrito’s police chief will provide more details on their findings at the next city council meeting on March 10. ...read more read less