At the center of the controversy is former San Diego Police Department Captain Jeff Jordon, a longtime SDPD official who helped oversee the city’s adoption of advanced surveillance technologies, including the license plate reader system now operated by Flock Safety. Within months of retiring from the department earlier this year, Jordon accepted a role with Flock Safety itself, where he now works to secure new law enforcement contracts nationwide.
The timing has unsettled privacy advocates and some elected officials, particularly as the City Council narrowly voted 5–3 on Tuesday night to continue San Diego’s citywide surveillance camera and license plate reader program after more than eight hours of debate and nearly 200 public speakers. The vote reaffirmed SDPD’s use of roughly 500 automated license plate readers mounted on streetlights across the city, a system that captures license plates along with the time, date, and location of passing vehicles, retaining that data for up to 30 days unless it becomes part of an active investigation.
The approval came despite intense opposition from residents, civil liberties groups, and immigrant advocates, many of whom warned that the technology amounts to mass surveillance and poses heightened risks under the current federal immigration enforcement climate. Several speakers raised fears that data collected locally could eventually be accessed or repurposed by federal authorities, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, despite assurances from city officials that California law prohibits such sharing and that San Diego’s policies go further by restricting access to city personnel only.
While police officials touted the system’s role in recovering stolen vehicles and assisting in homicide investigations, critics argued that crime-solving anecdotes do not offset the broader civil rights implications of blanket data collection. Councilmembers Vivian Moreno and Sean Elo-Rivera voiced concerns about the erosion of trust in government, particularly among immigrant communities and communities of color, warning that the presence of surveillance cameras alone can create fear regardless of formal data-sharing restrictions.
Those concerns intensified when Councilmember Henry Foster III publicly called out the optics of Jordon’s post-retirement employment with Flock Safety during the council hearing. “I just think that is totally inappropriate,” Foster said, echoing arguments raised by several members of the public who cited the relationship as emblematic of deeper structural problems in how surveillance contracts are pursued, justified, and renewed.
The issue is not whether Jordon violated any specific ethics rule - there is no public evidence that he did - but whether the system itself is designed to withstand the appearance and incentive structure of conflicts of interest. Under San Diego ethics rules, city employees are prohibited from influencing decisions involving entities with which they are seeking future employment, and former employees are barred from lobbying the city for one year after leaving public service. The problem, critics say, is that these safeguards rely heavily on self-disclosure and internal compliance, leaving the public with little visibility into when employment discussions begin or how fully recusal obligations are enforced.
This dynamic is especially fraught in the surveillance technology space, where vendors market themselves directly to police departments, often leveraging former law enforcement officials who understand procurement processes, political pressure points, and the language of public safety. Flock Safety, which has aggressively expanded nationwide, has faced multiple legal challenges in other jurisdictions over constitutional concerns tied to automated license plate reader deployments. In at least one federal case, deposition testimony from a Virginia police captain indicated that officers were paid by Flock during installation activities, further fueling questions about the company’s relationships with law enforcement agencies.
San Diego police have stated that no local officers were paid by Flock to install cameras here, and there is no public record showing Jordon received compensation from the company prior to his formal hiring. Still, good-government advocates argue that legality is not the same as legitimacy. When senior officials involved in shaping surveillance policy later appear on a vendor’s payroll, it undermines public confidence in the neutrality of the original decision-making process - particularly when that technology implicates constitutional rights.
The city’s own history adds weight to those concerns. San Diego’s earlier “smart streetlights” program collapsed amid public backlash after it became clear that cameras installed for infrastructure purposes were being used for law enforcement surveillance without clear policies, oversight, or transparency. A city audit later concluded that governance failures plagued the program, forcing officials to pause its use and adopt a new surveillance ordinance requiring annual council review of police technology.
Tuesday’s vote marked the first full review under that ordinance, yet for many residents, it felt less like accountability and more like entrenchment. Speakers warned that once surveillance systems become operationally embedded, financial and institutional momentum makes meaningful rollback nearly impossible. Indeed, city officials acknowledged during the hearing that disabling the license plate reader component would not reduce costs as long as the streetlight cameras remain in place, effectively binding the city to the technology.
Police Chief Scott Wahl defended the program as a transparent and effective crime-fighting tool, emphasizing expanded auditing, tightened data-sharing rules, and improved public reporting. But critics countered that procedural safeguards cannot fully address the chilling effect of pervasive monitoring or the risk of future misuse - particularly when federal policy priorities can change faster than local contracts or ordinances.
Against that backdrop, Jordon’s move to Flock Safety has become more than a footnote. For opponents of the surveillance program, it crystallizes a broader concern that San Diego’s policing technology decisions are shaped within a closed loop of vendors, consultants, and former officials, with residents brought in only at the tail end to react.
As San Diego continues to expand its surveillance footprint while promising restraint and oversight, the unresolved tension remains whether the city can credibly claim independence from the private interests that profit from constant data collection. For many who packed City Council chambers this week, the answer increasingly feels predetermined.
Originally published December 10, 2025.
