Berkeley Police Department

The Berkeley Police Department uses LexisNexis software, confirmed through the EFF’s Atlas of Surveillance, which documents LexisNexis ‘software searches’ at Berkeley PD. The specific product is not named in the Atlas entry — it could be Accurint for Law Enforcement, the AVCC investigative platform, or another LexisNexis tool.

Berkeley is one of the oldest sanctuary cities in the United States, with sanctuary policies dating to the 1970s, and has some of the strongest local protections against cooperation with immigration enforcement of any city in the country. The presence of a LexisNexis software relationship in Berkeley PD — even with product details unconfirmed — is therefore notable.

California’s SB54 applies statewide. Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, which serves as the county jail and is separately confirmed as a PSDEX member, operates within the same county. Whether Berkeley PD’s LexisNexis use constitutes a data contribution to PSDEX — potentially feeding the same network that Alameda County SO participates in — is the key open question. A California CPRA request for any LexisNexis contract would clarify both the product and the contribution status.

UPDATE, August 2026: LexisNexis now names Berkeley Police Department directly. The department appears on a roster LexisNexis publishes under the page title "Public Safety Data Exchange List of Member Agencies." That identifies the product as PSDEX rather than leaving it open among the company's law enforcement tools, and it moves the sourcing from a third-party surveillance index to the vendor itself.

Membership still does not establish that Berkeley PD contributes its own records. Members may contribute data, may only search data contributed by others, may hold a subscription to a related LexisNexis service, or may participate in the nationwide exchange in some other capacity. The roster names agencies without describing any agency's relationship to the exchange. The contract remains the document that would settle it.