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Electronic Frontier Foundation
EFFecting Change: Protect the Vote on October 8

Related Content: Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs)

Related Content: Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs)

A flock camera with spying eyes, silhouetted against a dark purple ground.
Deeplinks Blog by Rindala Alajaji, Adam Schwartz, Sarah Hamid | September 29, 2026

While the Country Rejects ALPR Mass Surveillance, SF Settles for Weak Safeguards

San Francisco's decision to retain its use of Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) surveillance cameras belies what we know about this spying technology tool: it endangers residents and threatens the privacy and civil liberties of our community. Based on what's in the city's press release and announcement, this policy...

An ALPR in a traffic barrel by the road
Deeplinks Blog by Dave Maass | December 2, 2025

How to Identify Automated License Plate Readers at the U.S.-Mexico Border

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and scores of state and local law enforcement agencies have installed a massive dragnet of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) in the US-Mexico borderlands. In many cases, the agencies have gone out of their way to disguise the cameras...

sinister cop and cameras loom over street grid with cars identified by license plate numbers
Press Release | November 18, 2025

Lawsuit Challenges San Jose’s Warrantless ALPR Mass Surveillance

SAN JOSE, Calif. – San Jose and its police department routinely violate the California Constitution by conducting warrantless searches of the stored records of millions of drivers’ private habits, movements, and associations, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) argue in a lawsuit...
ICE and CBP agents use ALPR surveillance on a car
Deeplinks Blog by Bill Budington | May 9, 2022

Thomson Reuters to Review Human Rights Impact of its Data Collection for ICE

EFF, along with many other organizations, has loudly sounded the alarm about data brokers and the myriad ways they can collect data on unsuspecting users, as well as the numerous dangers of public-private surveillance partnerships. One of the companies that has sometimes flown under the radar,...

Deeplinks Blog by Matthew Guariglia | October 28, 2019

The Ethics Board of One of the Largest Vendors of Police Tech Makes the Case Against ALPRs

Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs)—a mass surveillance technology that allows law enforcement to record the location and travel patterns of nearly every driver on the road—are poorly regulated, threaten privacy, and worsen the racial and economic inequalities already ingrained in our justice system. That’s what EFF and...

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