Police Policies Direct Officers to Conceal License Plate Surveillance
Internal documents show law enforcement agencies instruct officers to obscure automated license plate reader use to avoid public oversight.
Police departments across the United States are instructing officers to obscure their use of Automated License Plate Readers during traffic stops and in public records, according to law enforcement policy documents obtained by 404 Media.
An internal usage policy from Wapello County, Iowa, explicitly commands officers—in capitalized text—never to mention automated license plate reader usage when conducting traffic stops or drafting incident reports. The document directs personnel to characterize the surveillance tools vaguely as “county resources” and instructs officers to acknowledge the technology only if directly pressed by a lawyer during legal proceedings.
The directive reflects a broader pattern among law enforcement agencies to shield automated license plate readers, known as ALPRs, from public information requests. Similar tactics have historically been deployed to conceal cell-site simulators, commonly known as stingrays, which track cell phone signals by spoofing cell towers. Android has since begun developing functionality to alert users to stingray activity. Police officials have justified the opacity by claiming public disclosures allow criminals to circumvent surveillance networks.
The covert policies come amid escalating pushback against surveillance networks, including Flock cameras, which operate in more than 6,000 U.S. communities. These systems feed license plate data into searchable cloud databases to alert police to suspected crimes. However, false positive reports have led to improper traffic stops and wrongful arrests. In one Ohio incident, a false positive led to an innocent man being mauled by a police dog, causing him to lose his job and home.
Beyond mechanical errors, misuse remains a persistent issue. At least 50 officers have been accused of using ALPRs for stalking, while systems have also been deployed to track individuals on foot.
In response to privacy concerns, approximately 50 communities have stopped using the cameras since early last year. The Electronic Frontier Foundation tracks municipal deployment of such surveillance technology through its Atlas of Surveillance database.
