Every Car, Everywhere, All at Once
A national network of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) now blankets American roads, tracking the make, model, and location of nearly every car in the country. After millions of public dollars have been spent and billions of cars have been scanned, the public debate is catching up to the technology. The same system that helps police recover stolen vehicles and missing children has also produced misuse, mistakes, and a growing populist backlash. This three-part series cuts through the alarmism and the hype, weighing what the technology delivers against what it costs, and proposes commonsense rules for harnessing its benefits without creating a surveillance state.
Part 1 examines what ALPRs do, whether they reduce crime, and what we give up in exchange. Part 2 goes deeper into ALPRs’ novel risks, both to individual privacy and to police legitimacy, and analyzes the case law on how and when the government can track American citizens. Part 3 turns to solutions, exploring the state statutes already on the books, the proposals before Congress, and the steps needed to align ALPRs with the Constitution.