EPIC, Coalition Urge Congress to Ban Flock Automatic License Plate Readers

On Wednesday, EPIC joined more than 40 civil society groups to urge the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to support an amendment that would ban the use of automatic license plate readers for any purpose other than tolling. 

Reps. Scott Perry and Chuy García introduced this amendment to the Highway Bill in response to the rapid growth of ALPR surveillance technology in recent years. 

The expansion has largely been led by Flock Safety, a surveillance tech company that contracts with more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies and operates more than 80,000 AI-powered cameras across 49 states. 

“As the FBI prepares to spend $36 million on a nationwide license plate reader system capable of tracking any vehicle in ‘near real time,’ it is more critical than ever that Congress shields Americans from being subjected to warrantless, suspicionless tracking of their everyday lives.” the coalition letter reads. 

EPIC has long opposed the unchecked expansion of the surveillance state and recently filed an amicus brief arguing that Flock’s warrantless dragnet mass surveillance is unconstitutional.  

ALPR systems like Flock’s also perpetuate discriminatory and potentially unconstitutional predictive policing practices, the brief argued, as they were built on unvetted and inherently biased data that overrepresent poor and minority populations and then use that information to manufacture suspicion.