The San Jose Police Department has blanketed the city’s roadways with nearly five hundred Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs). The police department uses this unblinking surveillance network to indiscriminately collect millions of records per month about people’s movements, and keeps this ALPR data for an entire year. Then the police department allows its officers, and other law enforcement officials from across the state, to search this ALPR database to instantly reconstruct people’s locations over time – without first getting a warrant. This is an unchecked police power to scrutinize the movements of San Jose’s residents and visitors as they lawfully travel to work, to the doctor, or to a protest.

 San Jose’s ALPR surveillance program is especially pervasive in both time and place. Few California law enforcement agencies retain ALPR data for an entire year, and few have deployed nearly five hundred cameras. Moreover, most residents of San Jose need to drive in order to commute, shop, or pick of their kids.

 In November 2025, EFF and the ACLU of Northern California filed suit in California state court. We represent non-profit organizations that serve San Jose residents and that must travel throughout the city to do so: SIREN and CAIR California. We’ve sued the City of San Jose and its police chief and mayor. We challenge their practice of allowing police officers, without a warrant, to search San Jose’s massive trove of ALPR data. We allege that this practice violates the California Constitution’s ban on unreasonable searches and its guaranty of privacy. We ask the court to declare that these warrantless searches are unconstitutional, and to order defendants to end this practice.

 Learn more in this short video:

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 Read the complaint, the press release, and more below.

 Meet our clients:

Services, Immigrant Rights & Education Network (SIREN) is a non-profit organization that works to empower low-income immigrants and refugees through community education and organizing, leadership development, policy advocacy, civic engagement, and legal services. SIREN seeks to center the role of immigrants themselves as agents of long-term systemic change working to promote social justice and equality, freedom from oppression, and an end to poverty. It provides clinics and other education services to the community and its members.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, California (CAIR-CA) is a chapter of the nation’s largest American Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. CAIR-CA’s mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims. It serves California’s estimated one million American Muslims by providing direct legal services to victims of discrimination, working with the media, facilitating community education, and engaging in policy advocacy to advance civil rights and civic engagement.