Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) build a searchable map of everywhere a driver goes, fed into databases that police, ICE, and private vendors can query after the fact. This data can go back years and include detailed images of a car's make, model, and condition—even its bumper stickers—as well as plates, locations, and times. ALPR mass surveillance cannot be made safe with the right policy or feature update—it is irredeemably harmful.

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Flock Safety is one of the most well-known ALPR vendors, but ALPRs have been around for over 50 years, and the dangers of the technology go well beyond a single company. EFF has worked to expose the harms of ALPR surveillance and the practices of vendors like Vigilant/Motorola Solutions, Flock, Axon, and others since 2012. Donating to EFF means supporting one of the most knowledgeable organizations documenting the legal, technical, and social harms of ALPRs—and finding ways to leverage that legal and technical expertise in the fight against street level surveillance across the country.

Thanks to generous support from EFF members, we are over a decade into the fight, and we will only fight harder as the dangers of Flocks and ALPRs become widely known to the public.

At the city level, EFF works with community members and decision makers to outright refuse ALPR purchasing. ALPRs are not inevitable. The same decision mechanisms used to facilitate runaway surveillance purchasing in U.S. localities can be turned against these systems to dismantle them.

EFF also pushes state legislatures to establish strict state-level limits on ALPR surveillance, such as data-deletion rules and use restrictions. Building such constraints into statute can help mitigate the harms of existing ALPR systems.

In courts across the country, EFF files amicus briefs arguing that warrantless police searches of ALPR databases violate the Fourth Amendment. In California state court, EFF and the ACLU of Northern California are suing on behalf of two community groups, SIREN and CAIR-CA, arguing that the San Jose Police Department's practice of letting officers search stored plate data—to the tune of over 100,000 times a year—without a warrant violates the California Constitution. We’ve also sued to block California law enforcement from sharing ALPR data with federal and out-of-state agencies, in violation of a California statute.

A big part of EFF’s work is exposing the harms of ALPR surveillance. Our investigative team tirelessly collects information about how law enforcement uses ALPRs with public records requests, sues to enforce such requests, and publishes reports about them. We’ve also successfully lobbied for a State Auditor investigation of law enforcement’s use of ALPRs.

Thanks to generous support from EFF members, we are over a decade into the fight.

Networked across a city, ALPRs are purpose-built to continuously track everyone regardless of suspicion. Worse, they can be easily weaponized against immigrants, political dissidents, and other targeted communities. People with access to ALPR data have skirted safeguards and used it to racially profile individuals, track women seeking reproductive care, former partners, and activists. When you donate to EFF, you support the fight against ALL dangerous license plate reader technologies that invade privacy across the country. EFF will pore through public records, file lawsuits, relentlessly brief the press and lawmakers on the dangers of the technology, and help communities across the country in their pushback.

Whether you take the wheel, ride shotgun, or fund the mission from the back seat: Help us end ALPR mass surveillance.

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