While the Country Rejects ALPR Mass Surveillance, SF Settles for Weak Safeguards

San Francisco's decision to retain its use of Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) surveillance cameras belies what we know about this spying technology tool: it endangers residents and threatens the privacy and civil liberties of our community. Based on what's in the city's press release and announcement, this policy will do nothing to stop actual harms. We know innocent drivers will be stopped and menaced by officers because of erroneous matches. We know officers use Flock to stalk potential and past romantic partners. Data will be accessed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and used to deport immigrants. Promising greater penalties for such abuse will not end this. These are not isolated mistakes that another policy can fix. They are consequences of building a system that records everyone’s movements and makes them searchable by police. This is also not unique to a single vendor. From Flock Safety to Motorola to Axon—San Francisco must end its use of ALPRs. We ultimately cannot rely on new protocols from city officials, and the City’s new policy is woefully inadequate. There is no warrant requirement to search stored ALPR data. An incident or compute...