For decades, cars dictated urban planning in the United States. Few could have predicted that one day they would also double as surveillance nodes.
In thousands of towns and cities across the US, automatic license plate readers are installed at major intersections, bridges and freeway off-ramps.
These camera-based systems capture license plate data of passing vehicles, along with vehicle images and timestamps. Recently, these systems use artificial intelligence to create a comprehensive and searchable database that can be integrated with other law enforcement data repositories.
As a technology policy and data governance researcherI see the expansion of automatic license plate readers as a source of deep concern. This is happening as government authorities are looking for ways to target expatriate AND transgender communitiesthey are already using AI to monitor the protestsand are considering deploying AI systems for mass surveillance.
Eyes on the road
The use of cameras to track license plates dates back to the 1970s, when the UK was embroiled in a long-running conflict with the Irish Republican Army.
The Met, London’s police force, developed a system that used closed-circuit television cameras to monitor and record the license plates of vehicles entering and exiting the main roads.
The system and its successors were seen as useful tools for fighting crime. Over the next two decades, they expanded to other cities in the UK and around the world. In 1998, US Customs and Border Protection implement this technology. By the 21st century, it had begun to appear in cities across the US.
There are different ways for a jurisdiction to implement these systems, but local governments typically sign contracts with private companies that provide the hardware and service.
These companies often lure the authorities with free trial of surveillance equipment and promises of free access to their data in ways that circumvent local surveillance laws.
HE is thrown into the mix
Recently, AI has been incorporated into these camera systems, significantly increasing their scope.
The vehicle information that is captured is usually stored in the cloud, creating a massive network of data warehouses. If a camera collects information from a suspect’s car or truck—say, one also listed in the National Crime Information Center—AI can flag it and send an immediate alert to law enforcement.
In fact, this is a selling point of Flock Safetyone of the largest providers of automatic license plate readers. The company uses infrared cameras to capture images of vehicles. AI then analyzes the data to identify subjects and quickly alert local authorities.
On the surface, automatic license plate readers seem like a logical way to fight crime. More information about the whereabouts of the suspects could help law enforcement. And why worry about cameras if you’re following the law?
A Flock spokesperson told The Conversation that their technology has helped reduce crime, including violent crime, in cities that use their cameras, such as San Francisco and Oakland.
But there are few peer-reviewed studies on their effectiveness. Those that do exist find little evidence that they have led to a decrease on the violent crime ratealthough they seem to be helps solve some crimeslike car thefts.
Furthermore, installation and maintenance are costly.
For example, Johnson City, Tennessee, signed a 10-year, $8 million contract contract with Flock in 2025. Richmond, Virginia, paid the company over $1 million between October 2024 and November 2025 and recently extended the contract, despite objections from some residents.
The erosion of civil liberties in plain sight
The technology appears to highlight the pitfalls of what researchers call “technosolutionism”, the belief that complex issues like crime, poverty and climate change can be solved by technology.
Even more disturbing, to me, is the fact that these camera systems have created a massive infrastructure of location tracking put together by artificial intelligence.
The US does not have a federal law like that General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union that significantly limits the collection, storage, sale or sharing of location and mobility data.
As a result, data collected through the US surveillance infrastructure may circulate with limited transparency or accountability.
License plate readers can easily be accessed or repurposed beyond their original purposes of traffic management, fines or catching fugitives. All it takes is a change in enforcement priorities — or a new definition of what counts as a crime — for the original purpose of these cameras to disappear from view.
Civil liberties groups and digital rights organizations have been sounding the alarm about these cameras for more than a decade.
In 2013, The American Civil Liberties Union published a report titled “You’re Being Tracked: How License Plate Readers Are Being Used to Record Americans’ Movements.” AND Electronic Frontier Foundation condemned them as “street level surveillance.”
A move against the cameras appears
The promise of these cameras was simple: more data, less crime. But what followed has been darker: more data and a significant expansion of power over the public.
Without strong legal safeguards, this data could be used to target political opposition, facilitate discriminatory policing, or silence constitutionally protected activities.
This has already happened during the current administration’s aggressive deportation efforts. Automatic license plate reader database were shared with federal immigration agencies to monitor immigrant communities. Recently, Customs and Border Protection was granted access to over 80,000 Flock cameraswhich were also used to observe the protests.
Then there is reproductive health care. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, it was feared that people traveling across state lines to get an abortion can potentially be identified through databases of automatic license plate readers. In Texas, authorities accessed Flock’s surveillance data as part of the an inquiry into abortion in the year 2025.
Flock told NPR in February 2026 that cities control how this information is shared: “Each Flock customer has sole authority over whether, when, and with whom information is shared.”
The company noted that it has made efforts to “strengthen the separation of controls, oversight and auditing capabilities within the system.” But NPR also reported that many city officials around the US did not understand how widely the data was being shared.
In response, some states have sought to regulate the technology. Washington state legislators are considering the Driver Privacy Act. The legislation would prohibit agencies from using surveillance technology for immigration investigations and enforcement, and from collecting data about certain health care facilities. Protests would also be protected from surveillance.
Meanwhile, the grassroots initiative such as DeFlock have also appeared. DeFlock’s online platform documents the proliferation of automatic license plate reader networks to help communities resist their resettlement.
The movement frames these systems not simply as traffic technologies, but as key points in an expanding government data network—one that requires stronger democratic oversight and community consent.
This article has been updated to include a statement from Flock Safety.
Jess Reia is an assistant professor of data science, University of Virginia
This article was reprinted from Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read on original article.
