Automated license plate readers — technology now deployed by close to four in five law enforcement agencies nationwide — have drawn growing public attention over the past six months, partly because the systems allow vehicles and their owners to be tracked without a warrant. Utility poles and traffic signals throughout neighbourhoods across the country serve as mounting points for ALPR units.
Where ALPR technology has spread, residents in various localities have pushed their elected representatives to impose limits, prompting a number of cities and counties across the country to terminate vendor agreements, take down installed cameras, or prohibit the devices outright. With the 2026 midterm contests drawing attention to contested-state races in Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, candidates across both major parties have been putting forward pledges around oversight of surveillance technology; one analyst described Flock as having developed a reputational problem, while the automated license plate reader systems at the heart of that discussion use networks of cameras paired with algorithmic processing to generate searchable records — logging each passing vehicle's plate number, time of capture, location, and physical attributes such as make, model, and color — in an environment where no binding regulatory framework currently governs their operation.
In a March statement, Flock CEO Garret Langley put forward a figure of one million crimes addressed through his company's camera network during 2025 — a system that reportedly accounts for roughly 80 percent of all ALPR cameras catalogued across the United States. The figures drawn from the record do not align with the position Langley advanced.
Documented cases have surfaced of officers deploying automated license plate readers to surveil personal acquaintances, follow individuals crossing state lines to obtain reproductive healthcare, and share location data with immigration enforcement — uses that extend beyond the stated applications of locating missing persons or recovering stolen vehicles. Questions about regulating the technology — and protecting privacy and civil liberties in the process — have drawn attention from lawmakers and residents on both sides of the political aisle as localities weigh whether, and under what conditions, its deployment should be permitted.
When the National Policing Institute polled more than 1,400 adults that September, the results turned on purpose: roughly four in five backed license-plate reader cameras for locating missing children or pursuing violent-crime investigations, while nearly three in four drew the line at deploying the same technology for immigration enforcement or routine traffic and parking checks. A majority of respondents indicated that protective measures against misuse — if put in place by their department — would strengthen their backing for the technologies.
About a month out from a contested slate of elections, legislators spanning the political spectrum — candidates and incumbents alike — have started calling for a unified regulatory framework governing how automated license-plate reader networks, including Flock and competing platforms, can be used, as questions about the technology's reach gain traction among the public.
Licence-plate scanning technology has been in use since the 1990s, yet a 2018 survey found that nine out of ten people did not know whether their local police force relied on it — a knowledge gap that Clare Garvie, deputy director of technology law and policy at New York University's Policing Project, traced partly to the lack of consistent rules governing how those tools are deployed across most jurisdictions. Nationwide, the count of ALPR cameras has climbed past 120,000 units deployed across the United States.
Data gathered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics paint a picture of near-universal adoption: every law enforcement agency serving a city of more than one million residents has incorporated the technology, and nine out of ten sheriffs' offices that field at least 500 sworn deputies have done the same.
Over the twelve months preceding September 23, when a Senate subcommittee jointly convened by Josh Hawley of Missouri and Dick Durbin of Illinois met to examine oversight of automated license plate readers, the advocacy group DeFlock had tallied more than 50 municipal contract terminations with Flock and comparable ALPR vendors, while a privacy researcher's findings pointed to residents having been routinely excluded from deployment decisions — with camera counts, data retention timelines, and installation locations rarely disclosed to the public. Delegates from Flock, Axon, Motorola, and Verkada had been extended invitations to attend but did not show up, while Hawley told those present that a path forward must be found to uphold the Bill of Rights and the personal liberties of every law-abiding citizen, regardless of what form the technology takes.
Seven days after that announcement, Hawley put forward the Stop Flock Act, a proposal that would bar municipal and county authorities from transferring or disclosing vehicle data to outside non-governmental entities, cap how long that data can be held to ten days under most circumstances, and establish additional boundaries around how the cameras may be operated. Four separate pieces of legislation targeting ALPR restrictions were put before Congress within that single month of September.
A proposal put forward jointly by Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Jeff Merkley had its legislative text made public on October 2. Angie Nixon, Florida's Democratic state Senate nominee, has built her campaign around curtailing government surveillance and strengthening personal privacy rights. Nixon's proposal calls for federal standards that would require law enforcement to secure a warrant before accessing license plate reader data, set a mandatory timeline for deleting that data, and give communities a formal say in whether such surveillance contracts are entered into or extended — a position she grounded in the view, expressed in an interview, that addressing underlying factors such as limited access to stable employment and basic healthcare does more to prevent crime than surveillance technology, though the body of research examining whether license plate reader systems actually deter or help solve crimes remains thin.
One documented instance involved Lindsey Isaacs, a Florida resident who spent 13 days in custody on triple homicide charges after a Flock camera produced an erroneous match linking her Dodge Durango to a vehicle sought in connection with a fatal hit-and-run — an outcome that illustrates the type of error these systems have been recorded as producing. A measure prohibiting cameras on state highways took effect in early September under an executive order signed by Ron DeSantis, who serves as Florida's governor.
Toward the end of August, Abdul El-Sayed — then running as the Democratic candidate for Michigan's Senate seat — put out a video examining Flock and what he described as ties between the surveillance industry and his Republican rival Mike Rogers. On the question of Flock camera networks, campaign representatives for both Rogers and El-Sayed described their candidates as opposed to deployment without regulatory oversight — a position that tracks with concerns raised by voters across Michigan; Cole Wozniak, speaking for El-Sayed, noted that the candidate had heard those concerns firsthand on the trail and intended to pursue Senate legislation threading public safety alongside privacy protections, while the Rogers camp told a news outlet that its candidate drew a firm line against using the cameras to surveil people who had committed no offense, and that safeguarding liberty and maintaining public order were goals he viewed as compatible rather than competing.
In both Montana and Tennessee, independent candidates running without party affiliation held protests outside camera positions. In four states — Iowa, Texas, Florida, and Arizona — governor's race contenders from each of the two dominant parties have placed restrictions on, or outright elimination of, automated licence plate reader technology among their stated policy positions.
On the question of automated licence plate reader rules at the state level, Iowa's two gubernatorial contenders — Republican Zach Lahn and Democrat Rob Sand — have each indicated a willingness to sign such legislation into law. Lahn described the devices as a violation of Fourth Amendment protections, while Sand has built his campaign around the question of who should have authority over ALPR use at the local level.
Pennsylvania state Senator Dan Laughlin has put forward legislation that would prohibit Flock Safety cameras and comparable automated license plate readers from operating in the state, arguing in a public statement that accountability for public safety ought not to extend to building infrastructure capable of monitoring the everyday movements of millions of people who have committed no offense. Garvie, the researcher at NYU, noted that Flock has come to function as a stand-in for ALPR technology as a whole. At a Senate hearing convened by Hawley, an Arizona sheriff testified that the license-plate reader company's name had taken on the quality of an expletive in everyday conversation.
