WASHINGTON — Senators from both parties raised concerns about the expanding capabilities of automatic license plate reader networks during a Sept. 23 hearing, while an Arizona sheriff urged lawmakers to preserve the technology’s legitimate law enforcement uses.
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism hearing examined how ALPR systems collect and share vehicle data, as well as whether officers should need a warrant to search historical location information.
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Pinal County Sheriff Ross Teeple told lawmakers that traditional plate-reading technology remains a valuable policing tool.
“Automatic license plate readers are a great tool,” Teeple said. “Technology that is strictly limited to reading a license plate helps us solve crimes, catch dangerous criminals and find missing people.”
Teeple said ALPRs allow officers to immediately compare plates against stolen-vehicle databases and respond to active AMBER Alerts. He described that point-in-time use of plate information as “common-sense policing.”
He also pointed to a recent Pinal County case in which an aggressive driver rammed a woman’s vehicle and pushed it into oncoming traffic, killing her. Law enforcement identified the driver with help from an ALPR, Teeple said.
Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., cited cases in her state in which ALPRs helped authorities locate missing children and endangered people. She said the technology was also used to find an older adult with dementia and return the person home.
“I think two things can be true at the same time,” Britt said, emphasizing the need to give officers effective tools while protecting Fourth Amendment rights.
Much of the hearing focused on how ALPR technology has expanded beyond individual plate detection. Newer systems can link information from cameras across jurisdictions, allowing users to search where a vehicle was recorded over time.
“If my deputies need a search warrant to put a physical tracker on a vehicle, where is the line for camera systems that build an identical AI-driven map of a citizen’s life?” Teeple asked.
Teeple ended the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office’s contract with Flock Safety after taking office in 2025. He emphasized that he had no indication his deputies had misused the system.
“My deputies were using the technology correctly,” he said.
Teeple said his concerns instead centered on the system’s evolving capabilities and the answers he received from Flock. According to the sheriff, a company representative initially told him its cameras did not use artificial intelligence. Flock later described using AI to create a digital fingerprint of a vehicle.
The sheriff warned that a future court ruling could restrict legitimate uses of ALPRs if lawmakers do not first establish clear rules for newer capabilities.
“We must establish clear statutory boundaries for automatic license plate readers,” Teeple said. “We cannot wait for a future Supreme Court ruling to correct AI overreach. We must protect the Fourth Amendment today.”
Teeple cited ALPR principles recently released by 13 national law enforcement and public safety organizations as a possible framework.
The principles call for every agency using ALPRs to have a written policy governing access and authorized searches. Agencies should routinely audit system use, and violations should carry meaningful consequences, according to the framework.
The organizations also emphasized that an ALPR detection is an investigative lead that must be verified before officers take enforcement action. They support sharing data across jurisdictions when it serves a legitimate public safety purpose and argue that overly short retention periods could eliminate information before investigators recognize its significance.
Other witnesses differed on what federal restrictions should look like.
Alasdair Whitney, legislative counsel for the Institute for Justice, urged Congress to require warrants for searches of historical location information. He said the proposal would preserve officers’ ability to use ALPRs in time-sensitive cases.
“To be clear, none of these restrictions would stop law enforcement from finding a missing child or a stolen car,” Whitney said. “We’re not asking for you to turn the cameras off.”
Whitney said established exceptions to the warrant requirement would still allow officers to act immediately during emergencies.
Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, advocated prohibiting ALPR use by law enforcement agencies receiving federal money. The competing recommendations showed that while witnesses broadly supported preventing misuse, they did not agree on whether safeguards would be sufficient.
Lawmakers also heard from Lindsey Isaacs, a Florida woman who spent 13 days in jail after Flock data became part of an investigation into a crash that killed three people.
Isaacs said a camera captured her black Dodge Durango several miles from the crash. Police later alleged that her SUV had damage consistent with a collision, but photographs taken at an impound lot showed no such damage, according to her testimony. The vehicle involved in the crash was maroon.
The state declined to prosecute Isaacs, and the investigation instead resulted in charges against another person.
Cybersecurity researcher Benn Jordan testified that he and other researchers had identified vulnerabilities involving Flock products. Some of the equipment he discussed included the company’s Condor pan-tilt-zoom cameras rather than its ALPR cameras.
Jordan said replacing Flock with another vendor would not resolve the broader security concerns.
“Everything that I just stated about them is a symptom of a much larger problem,” he said.
Jordan called Flock a “canary in the coal mine,” noting that Axon Enterprise and Motorola Solutions are developing similar technology. He urged lawmakers to require independent security testing for companies that collect surveillance data for law enforcement agencies.
He also said Flock appears to be taking security more seriously than it did a year ago. The company recently invited Jordan and other researchers to review its hardware and platform, he said.
Flock has announced several changes, including a recommended seven-day retention period for new law enforcement customers. It has also begun requiring multi-factor authentication and is moving toward mandatory case codes for law enforcement searches.
Flock maintains that an alert is an investigative lead, not a conclusion, and should be visually confirmed before officers act.
The CEOs of Flock, Axon Enterprise, Motorola Solutions and Verkada were invited to testify, but none appeared. Subcommittee Chairman Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said Flock CEO Garrett Langley responded in writing.
Hawley said the letter acknowledged that customers control their search records and data-retention settings. He also said Flock confirmed that people appearing in images captured by its cameras can be searched.
The hearing record will remain open through Sept. 30 for additional statements and written questions.
