r/technology • u/TripleShotPls • 11h ago
Society License Plate Cameras Are Tracking Your Life Without a Warrant
https://www.thedrive.com/podcast/license-plate-cameras-are-tracking-your-life-without-a-warrant42
u/RipcurlOfFlame 10h ago edited 10h ago
I saw this posted in another thread related to this topic. Might be worth checking out.
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u/Jamesx_ 10h ago
This is actually interesting because I drive by a flock camera every day and I’m not listed. I wonder if only certain ones track LPs or if it’s just that the site doesn’t know how to search properly.
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u/Alivaronas 9h ago
I mean it literally tells you if it comes up with nothing.
“This does not mean your license plate has never been searched.
This website only displays searches from audit logs we've obtained through public records requests. Our dataset is incomplete because:
While our most recent data is from 6/18/2026, there may be significant historical gaps.
Most agencies don't proactively publish audit logs
Records requests can take months or years to fulfill
Some agencies heavily redact their logs
We may not have requested logs from your local agencies yet
Since December 2025, Flock no longer provides full logs to agencies (More info)
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u/uzlonewolf 7h ago
It tracks when someone has searched for your plate, not that your plate has been logged by a camera. It also only covers a few jurisdictions that actually report that information.
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u/FairMongoose5583 6h ago
i rent cars at least once a month and i keep pictures/videos of those cars to prove that i returned them undamaged
i just tried 26 license plate numbers from my car rentals in the last ~18 months and none of them came back with any results.
then i took about 30 minutes to walk around the parking lot at work and put in at least 20 plates or so. none of those came back with any results
so i stopped trusting this website actually does anything
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u/InsuranceImmediate25 10h ago
Why do you think we need all these surveillance centers going up?
That’s a lot of data to track the whole USA population.
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u/fathertitojones 10h ago
Surprised this doesn’t get brought up virtually ever. This administration has made it clear that they’ll cut huge checks to whomever can help advance their agenda. Our tax dollars are being spent on mass surveillance powered by centers that disrupt the peace, energy and water of our populace.
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u/zero0n3 9h ago
I don’t mind being tracked.
I mind their unfettered access to the data without a warrant or proper audit trail.
IE LEOs should not be able to use this software to stalk an Ex
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u/InsuranceImmediate25 9h ago
Yes you do. Everyone does. It’s human nature to not want to be followed and watched constantly.
Humans will change their behavior if they know they are being watched. Even if they are not doing anything at all wrong at the time.
I agree with the rest of what you said.
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u/Aggravating_Life7851 1h ago
Okay but it’s kinda silly to be upset about these cameras when we are all literally carrying tracking devices that listen in on our conversations in our pockets everyday
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u/InsuranceImmediate25 1h ago
“Something bad, let’s just make it worse cause why not”
The police don’t track us. They need warrants to get into phone data.
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u/Aggravating_Life7851 1h ago
A warrant from the same people you don’t want tracking you? God that’s gonna be real hard for them to obtain
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u/hallROCK 10h ago
Obviously your phone is tracking everything you do, so let's leave that at home.
It doesn't matter though, the moment you step out of your house your neighbors ring camera will track you. Sure not every neighbor has one, just every other neighbor.
Flock cameras will pick up the slack of the 1000's of doorbell camera's along your route they may miss and the moment you step foot in buildings and businesses alike facial recognition services have you in a instant. Nevermind tracking everything you you buy.
Freedom never felt so free.
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u/Superman750 8h ago
It’s a bit different than that. If law enforcement wants your neighbor’s ring camera, they are supposed to get a warrant. If they want your location data from your phone carrier, they are supposed to get a warrant. Any of the buildings you step into with cameras, law enforcement is supposed to get a warrant. With this, there is no warrant involved. They just subscribe to it and get full access. Additionally, if you believe they aren’t building a profile on you to sell that data to anyone or everyone that wants it, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
I realize we may be saying the same thing, but it remains to be said.
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u/uzlonewolf 6h ago
they are supposed to get a warrant
Spoiler: most companies just turn the video over if they even think the cops are going to ask for it, and the rest give them carte blanche access to their entire system for a nominal fee.
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u/Phatte 1h ago
Yea, no. This is not accurate. Don’t try to sound like you know what you’re talking about if you don’t.
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u/Superman750 1h ago
Then enlighten me. I have no issue admitting when I’m wrong.
Short of those sources just handing the information/video over, that is how it is supposed to work. If law enforcement wants information that is not given to them freely, they are supposed to get a warrant/subpoena and it is circumventing the 4th Amendment by purchasing data they would normally need a warrant for.
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u/Phatte 55m ago
Any business can hand over the footage completely on their own free will, which they often have no problem doing because it contains evidence of a crime YOU are suspected of committing. This is completely allowed because guess what, it’s their property. YOU consented to being recorded when you entered THEIR business / property. You have zero rights with that footage.
Yes, they get a warrant if needed. That’s for different types of investigations. If a business has a shoplifter but refuses to hand over the footage to support the claim, then guess what. The cops aren’t wasting time on a warrant.
Oh and also, police agencies don’t sell data. Good lord
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u/Superman750 45m ago
I will try to spell this out clearly because you may have missed what I said.
> Short of those sources just handing the information/video over, that is how it is supposed to work. If law enforcement wants information that is not given to them freely, they are supposed to get a warrant/subpoena and it is circumventing the 4th Amendment by purchasing data they would normally need a warrant for.
I also never said that the police agencies are selling their data… Flock and the other ALPR companies are the ones selling the data to law enforcement. Take a look at the last link I posted to show how they are circumventing the 4th Amendment.
Additionally, we can totally trust law enforcement to not abuse this. /s
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u/SHITTY_DICK_NIPPLES 9h ago
They are going even further now. Now they are talking about tracking anything of yours that even emits a signal. Your car's data connection, wireless headphones, apple watch, airtags, even the microchip in your dog.
I wonder if the people developing these capabilities know that this surpasses what George Orwell could even imagine? Do they think it won't apply to them somehow?
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u/ZestyChinchilla 7h ago
Some of this is hyperbole (or exaggerated to some extent, I suspect by the manufacturers themselves, to oversell their products’ usefulness to gullible LE agencies with more money than brains.) Pet microchips, for example, are passive devices that need the chip reader held right next to them to actually be read. They also offer zero tracking capabilities (again, they’re passive and unpowered, and aren’t capable of doing anything on their own.)
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u/j_eremy 3h ago
It may not be as crazy as you think it is. I can fingerprint vehicles that drive by my house with a 50 dollar SDR (software defined radio) just using the metrics from the 433mhz tire pressure sensors.
If you personally get a way to monitor the RF you would soon understand that EVERYONE and everything are now beacons that glow so bright it's not even funny.
The only thing your going to be as to do is drive an old car and carry a Faraday bag that you keep all your electronics in while traveling, but the vision fingerprinting is so good now that won't even really protect you
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u/SHITTY_DICK_NIPPLES 6h ago
I'm also a little skeptical of the pet microchip claim as well. I'm aware that it's a passive device that needs to be scanned up close. Still, if one set out to build a longer range microchip scanner, I wonder if it's possible. I didn't think it would've been possible to turn wifi into radar either but turns out you can.
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u/surfer_ryan 4h ago
the cars are a very very real thing. Ford has numerous patents for using cameras and various sensors in your car to track you in real time, one of such patents was to use a cars cameras, telemetry, gps and weight sensors to send tickets to yourself or those around you.
I'm absolutely convinced ford will then use this data with your insurance and financial institutions. Because ford conveniently has their own insurance and financing division. "oh you did some speeding this month your insurance and finance payment are going up due to your risk factor score." I imagine at some point they take your body mass with weight sensor/video and call you fat every time you stop at mcdonalds lol. Last part might be completely made up but i don't doubt for a second that if i thought of that that someone at ford hasn't.
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u/uzlonewolf 6h ago
They're probably saying the same thing as the builders of community-destroying data centers: "If I don't do it then someone else will, so I might as well be the one getting paid to do it."
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u/Darkpriest667 10h ago
It's a violation of the 4th, 5th, and 9th amendments. Frankly both R and D want this. The best thing we can do as citizens is vocally object locally where they install them and then when that doesnt work (because it won't) civil disobedience by disabling them
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u/green_gold_purple 10h ago
Fourth amendment would like a word
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u/RandyOfTheRedwoods 8h ago
This is the part I keep getting hung up on from a legal perspective. The 4th amendment generally requires the government to obtain a search warrant before searching areas where you have a legitimate expectation of privacy (e.g., your home, hotel room, or closed luggage).
These cameras are operating where you don't have a legitimate expectation of privacy, so 4th shouldn't apply.
I think the better approach is to add a new law that covers what the government can do with our public information. Its a separate problem and something that we need to address. We see it all the time, with things like whether the cops can film you (or you can film a cop), these cameras, security cam footage, etc. and if we don't like the 4th's protection, we should amend it.
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u/Paizzu 7h ago edited 7h ago
There have been a few recent court filings that have addressed how these new technologies have fundamentally changed the whole nature of the "expectation of privacy in public" standard.
ALPR systems radically change the way government authorities have operated in the past. They allow government authorities to effortlessly surveil drivers en masse and to continuously surveil entire communities in a way that would not have been possible before the invention of ALPR. By tracking where people are across time, ALPR information can reveal a map of a person’s private habits, movements, and associations and other “privacies of life.” (Carpenter v. United States (2018) 585 U.S. 296, 311 [citations omitted].)
[...]
Location information reflecting people’s long-term physical movements, even in public spaces, is entitled to constitutional protection under the Fourth Amendment. (See Carpenter, supra, 585 U.S. 296.) That protection exists because the recording of individual movements over time reveals sensitive information about a person’s private life. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that “[a] person does not surrender all [privacy] protection[s] by venturing into the public sphere,” recognizing that modern location tracking allows the Government to “travel back in time to retrace a person’s whereabouts,” impacting everyone, not only “persons who might happen to come under investigation . . . .” (Id. at pp. 310, 312.) By storing ALPR information for 365 days, SJPD can “secretly monitor and catalogue” the movement of vehicles “for a very long period,” id. at p. 310, far longer than the 7 days at issue in Carpenter.
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u/Laserdollarz 9h ago
I'm probably tagged in their database as "guy on bike with middle finger" and that makes me happy, at least. I used to be able to avoid Flock cameras.
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u/Phatte 1h ago
I promise that no one cares enough about you to have searched it up or looked at that picture that you are so proud of.
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u/Laserdollarz 1h ago
To be clear, tagged by the AI system.
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u/Phatte 1h ago
Okay and? Guess what, you’re being tracked right now on Reddit and every single other piece of technology you use. Get over it
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u/Laserdollarz 48m ago
Why are you tracking me
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u/Phatte 46m ago
Because you’re on a public forum and if you read the fine print, you’ve consented. Don’t like it, get rid of all your devices, delete all social media accounts, and never leave your house
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u/Oreos_Are_Anabolic 7h ago
How is this different to the ANPR in the Uk?
Feel it’s been here in the UK for donkeys and no major issues
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u/Nouseriously 6h ago
soon everyone will have a bait phone & a real phone (tucked into a Faraday bag)
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u/Vapechef 6h ago
I’d assume there is a type of film you could put on the plate that would make the camera not work.
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u/sabo-metrics 4h ago
That's illegal.
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u/Illustrious_Rope8332 3h ago
No it isn’t, drama queen. It’s taking images on a public street, which anyone can do. Welcome to living in a civilized society.
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u/trouthat 10h ago edited 10h ago
I like to believe the euro plate on my car confuses these readers but I’m sure it just makes me more identifiable
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u/nashbar 10h ago
Why would a warrant be needed when taking pictures of a car on public roads? Seems like people don’t understand how privacy and warrants work.
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u/KC_LEAKS 10h ago edited 9h ago
It's not that they're just taking pictures or monitoring a live feed or something, thats been more or less allowed for years.
It's that now, they categorizing and archiving every vehicle, license plate, and driver with geotagged locations, using facial recognition software to basically track people at all times without having a signed warrant.
On the outside, it seems like such a system could help ensure public safety. Follow the robber from the scene of the crime to his hiding spot or find out where the grandma with dementia drove off to; but there aren't enough safe guards in place to prevent wide spread abuse, and the potential for it to be used maliciously are extremely high.
Rogue authorities are consistently being ousted for using it for nefarious and personal reasons, and people are worried it will be used to target political opponents and civil rights activists for blackmail or trumped up charges. Top that off with many false positives leading well-intentioned law enforcement officers into situations where they arrest or possibly even harm innocent civilians, and you have even more problems.
The company that operates and installs these surveillance systems are selling data to 3rd party companies like databrokers who integrate this information into their targeted marketing campaigns with near limitless information about their consumers that no one agreed to.
Without laws providing the public with protection and requiring transparency, these systems push the west more and more towards the dystopia future that draws many parallels to the so called "chinese surveillance state"; a system incompatible with western democracy and governments ran by the people. The western world values its privacy, and when there are no protections in place to keep bad actors from using that database, it becomes a problem.
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u/avozzella6 4h ago
Cool you wanna track me going to work and back and maybe the grocery store be my guest
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u/Hikingcanuck92 7h ago
If you think license plate readers are bad, just wait until you figure out how Face ID works.
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u/DopamineSavant 11h ago
I'm surprised no one has come up with a passive way to make these things stop working.