In August 2022, my truck was stolen on the streets of San Francisco. I had only lived in the city for a year, but it was the third time it was stolen or broken into. This led me to report on the epidemic of car crime around the city and how anti-theft technology made some cars harder to steal than others.
The Bay Area then had one of the highest rates of car theft in the nation. Four years later, something remarkable has happened: car thefts in SF are down almost 59%, and car break-ins are down more than 82%, according to our analysis of SFPD crime data comparing January through August of 2026 with the same months in 2022. And once again, technology is a prominent part of the story.
San Francisco's law enforcement leaders tell us that greater use of surveillance technology — including a controversial, AI-powered license plate camera system made by Flock Safety — has been crucial to this drop in car crime. How much credit does Flock actually deserve? And even if it does help reduce crime, can cities use this high-tech dragnet without trampling on everyone's constitutional rights?
As reports of officers abusing Flock have made headlines and the company has become increasingly controversial, hundreds of cities and counties have ended or suspended their contracts with the company, or decided not to renew them. But some, like Los Angeles and Denver, made a lot of hoopla about dropping Flock only to keep scanning license plates with a competitor surveillance system made by Axon — in a sense, ditching Coke for Pepsi. San Francisco's leaders, however, remain committed to using the Flock system.
Instead of getting rid of it, they're seeking to tighten the rules around its use and make misuse of its data a crime. Their approach could become a test case for cities around the country: can they use this sort of high-tech surveillance system to fight crime while putting the brakes on abuse of it? Today in the Planet Money newsletter, we dig into the evidence and the debate over what these systems can do — and what they could cost us.
When my truck was stolen in 2022, San Francisco was in the midst of a revolution in its approach to crime. Weeks earlier, voters had recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin over what many considered to be his lax approach to criminal prosecution. Then-Mayor London Breed appointed one of Boudin's biggest critics, Brooke Jenkins, to replace him.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
