License plate cameras face a national backlash as towns and courts push back

DENVER — Automated license plate readers blanketing American roads are running into a wall of lawsuits, canceled contracts, and citizen revolts, and the pushback is growing. Lauren Fix of Car Coach Reports walked through the backlash on The Kim Monson Show, telling listeners the cameras have spread “like North Korea everywhere” and that ordinary drivers are now being tracked without cause.

The most visible brand on those poles is Flock Safety, a privately held Atlanta company founded in 2017. Flock owns its cameras and leases them to police departments, homeowners associations, and private property owners on subscription contracts. The company says it operates in more than 5,000 communities across 49 states and logs over 20 billion vehicle scans a month. The systems capture more than a plate number; they record make, model, and color, aggregate that with other camera feeds, and route the data to centralized databases, where it is commonly held for 30 days.

A Fourth Amendment fight in the courts

The constitutional question is working its way through the federal courts. The Institute for Justice sued Norfolk, Virginia in October 2024 in Schmidt v. City of Norfolk, arguing that the city’s network of Flock cameras tracks residents’ movements without a warrant. A federal judge dismissed the case in January 2026, ruling that the cameras do not violate the Fourth Amendment, and the Institute for Justice is appealing to the Fourth Circuit. The firm has also documented at least 16 cases of officers using plate-reader systems to track romantic partners, exes, or strangers, Carscoops reported.

“You’re violating my Fourth Amendment rights. I didn’t do anything wrong,” Fix said on the show, summing up the objection that drives the revolt.

That objection is sharpened by what happens when the systems are abused. Costa Mesa, California, officer Robert Josett used his department’s Flock system to track his mistress and her romantic interests; he pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors, including unauthorized computer access, in April 2026, CBS Los Angeles reported. It was one of the cases Fix flagged on air.

Towns vote the cameras down

Communities are acting on that objection. In Pine Plains, New York, a two-year, $80,000 Flock contract signed without town board approval was declared null and void as of Feb. 3, 2026 after public outcry, and no cameras were ever installed, according to The New Pine Plains Herald. “Many little towns, like this Pine Plains, they took down the cameras,” Fix said. “They said, we’re not going to do it.”

Other reversals followed across 2025 and 2026. Flagstaff and South Tucson, Arizona, terminated their Flock contracts; Saranac Lake, New York, halted installation in February 2026; and Denver dropped Flock after its city council unanimously rejected a $666,000 contract extension in May 2025 amid concerns the data was being shared with immigration enforcement, later moving to a competitor. In 2025, roughly 20 places nationwide voted to disable, reject, or terminate the technology.

The backlash does not always win. After about six hours of public comment with the majority of speakers opposed, the San Diego City Council voted on Dec. 9, 2025 to continue using the cameras, overriding its own Privacy Advisory Board’s recommendation to stop. That program cost the city about $3.5 million tied to a streetlight contract.

Who pays for the cameras

Most departments acquire Flock through subscription contracts paid from local police or general-fund budgets. Where federal money is involved, it flows through Department of Justice grants such as Byrne JAG and through Department of Homeland Security grants. Vendors market the cameras as “grant-ready,” which, the Electronic Frontier Foundation documents, lets departments acquire the systems with little upfront local cost and limited public oversight before the recurring fees become permanent budget lines.

The data-sharing worries that fueled Denver’s decision are spreading. California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the City of El Cajon in October 2025 for sharing plate-reader data with out-of-state and federal agencies in violation of state law. EFF has also documented how the federal grant money and data-sharing networks behind these systems open a backdoor for immigration enforcement to query local plate-reader data.

Fix closed with a call to action. She urged listeners to press their elected representatives on Fourth Amendment grounds and to make removing the cameras a November election issue. “It was quick to put them up,” she said. “But getting them down might be more challenging.”