We’re Asking an Appeals Court to Require a Warrant for ALPR Searches
The EFF and ACLU filed a joint amicus brief in the Sixth Circuit, arguing that police use of automated license plate reader data to track a suspect's movements without a warrant constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. The case stems from a robbery investigation in the Cleveland area where law enforcement accessed ALPR records with no warrant.
Why this matters: Every time you drive, license plate readers can log where you went, when, and how often. That data does not disappear. It gets stored, shared across agencies, and searched later, often without a warrant. That is a detailed map of your life built without your knowledge. The legal question here is whether that kind of dragnet tracking requires judicial oversight. If courts say no, police can reconstruct anyone's movements just by querying a database. That should bother you whether or not you have ever done anything wrong.
Who should care: Privacy officers · Cybersecurity · General readers · Policy
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