States Are Hiding License Plate Surveillance From the Public

Security camera mounted on a pole overlooking a city street at dusk — Photo via Unsplash

TL;DR: Public records requests are the single most effective weapon communities have against license plate surveillance. They've been used to expose racist ALPR targeting, track how police shared data with ICE, and reveal that cops tracked someone seeking an abortion. That transparency got cameras torn down and contracts killed in dozens of cities. Now at least seven states (Georgia, Maryland, Oklahoma, Washington, Illinois, and others) have passed laws exempting ALPR data from public records. Arizona wants to make requesting the data a felony. Connecticut is trying to block access to anything "created through analysis" of plate scans. The EFF warns this is a deliberate strategy: build the surveillance network first, then make it illegal to ask questions about it.

The Pattern Is Clear

Here's how it works, every time. A city signs a contract with Flock Safety or another ALPR vendor. The cameras go up. Someone files a public records request. What comes back is damning: mass tracking of innocent drivers, data shared across agencies without oversight, plates scanned thousands of times with no connection to any crime.

The community gets angry. City councils hold emergency meetings. Contracts get canceled. In at least 57 cities nationwide, Flock cameras have been rejected or pulled after residents learned what the systems actually do ^[1].

So now, instead of fixing the surveillance, states are fixing the transparency problem. If nobody can file a records request, nobody finds out what the cameras are doing. Problem solved.

The States That Already Blocked Access

An April 30 EFF investigation documented the growing wave of ALPR records exemptions ^[2]. Here's the damage so far:

Georgia went furthest. The state exempted all ALPR data, both "captured by or derived from" automated plate readers, from its open records law. Then it made requesting law enforcement plate data for any non-law-enforcement purpose a misdemeanor ^[2]. Ask the wrong question, get a criminal record.

Maryland exempted "information gathered by" any automated license plate reader from its Public Information Act ^[2]. Clean, broad, and nearly impossible to challenge.

Oklahoma carved out an exemption for ALPR data "collected, retained or shared" by District Attorneys under the state's Uninsured Vehicle Enforcement Program ^[2]. A narrow excuse for a broad shield.

Washington signed SB 6002 into law on March 30, 2026, with immediate effect. The "Driver Privacy Act" prohibits agencies from disclosing any ALPR data under the state's Public Records Act. It applies retroactively to pending requests: if you already filed one before March 30, too bad ^[3]. Willfully sharing ALPR data is now a gross misdemeanor. The Attorney General has until December 2027 to develop model policies, meaning the cameras operate in a policy vacuum until then ^[3].

Illinois passed HB 3339, blocking public records requests for ALPR data used or collected by the Illinois State Police ^[2].

The Next Two States

Arizona and Connecticut have active bills to join the blackout:

Arizona's SB 1111 would restrict public access to data "collected by" automated plate readers. But here's the kicker: unauthorized access would be a felony ^[2]. Not a misdemeanor like Georgia. A felony. For looking at how police use surveillance cameras.

Connecticut's SB 4 would exclude information "gathered by" an ALPR and anything "created through analysis" of ALPR data ^[2]. That second part is the dangerous one. Analysis could mean heat maps showing where police concentrate surveillance. It could mean reports on racial disparities in plate scans. It could mean any document that references ALPR data at all. The language is deliberately broad.

What Public Records Actually Revealed

The reason states are panicking about ALPR transparency is because public records requests keep producing results that are politically radioactive. The EFF documented what open records have uncovered ^[2]:

Data-sharing between departments that was never disclosed to the public or city councils
Racist targeting patterns: ALPR cameras disproportionately deployed in Black and Latino neighborhoods
Surveillance of protesters: plate scans collected at demonstrations and political events
Tracking someone who sought an abortion: ALPR data used to monitor the movements of a person accessing reproductive healthcare
ICE data sharing: local police feeding ALPR data to immigration enforcement without public knowledge

Every one of those revelations came through a public records request. Every one of those revelations led to community pushback. And every one of those revelations is exactly what these new laws are designed to prevent.

The Scale of What's Being Hidden

This isn't about a few cameras in a few cities. Flock Safety alone operates in more than 6,000 municipalities across 49 states, with roughly 80,000 cameras performing over 20 billion vehicle scans per month ^[4]. The ACLU has tracked the company's aggressive expansion through free trial programs that get cameras installed before communities can debate them ^[5].

Twenty billion scans a month. That's not targeted law enforcement. That's a nationwide database of where every car in America goes, every day, stored and searchable by thousands of agencies, and increasingly off-limits to the people being tracked.

California's governor vetoed a bill that would have restricted police use and sharing of ALPR data, saying it "does not strike the delicate balance between protecting individual privacy and ensuring public safety" ^[6]. Translation: the surveillance stays, and so does the data sharing.

The EFF's Warning

EFF authors Beryl Lipton, Aaron Mackey, and Adam Schwartz laid out what's at stake: public disclosure of ALPR records has enabled communities to "block new deployments, refuse contract renewals, and terminate existing agreements" ^[2]. That's the power being taken away.

The EFF isn't arguing against all privacy protections for ALPR data. They support balancing tests, case-by-case analysis that can redact sensitive information while still disclosing how the systems are used. They support releasing aggregated and de-identified data that shows surveillance patterns without exposing individual plates ^[2].

What they oppose is the blanket exemption approach: declare all ALPR data off-limits, full stop. No balancing. No redaction. No accountability. That's what Georgia, Maryland, Oklahoma, Washington, and Illinois chose. That's what Arizona and Connecticut are considering.

Why This Matters Now

The ALPR transparency fight is happening at the worst possible time. Federal agencies are using Flock cameras for immigration enforcement. Cities are cutting off federal access to their local camera networks. Lawsuits are challenging warrantless ALPR surveillance in federal court. States like Colorado and Washington are writing new rules for plate readers.

All of that activism was fueled by information that came from public records. Without those records, communities are flying blind. They can't challenge what they can't see.

The surveillance cameras know where you drive. Increasingly, the law says you're not allowed to know what they do with that information.

Sources

Published: May 7, 2026