Five years ago, police in San Jose, California, began using automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) to record information about vehicles traveling through the city. The initial experiment involved four Flock Safety cameras at a single intersection. Today the San Jose Police Department (SJPD) has access to data captured by a network of 474 ALPR cameras that blanket the city, recording residents as they go about their daily lives.
More than 1,000 SJPD employees are authorized to search that information, which does not require a warrant, probable cause, or even individualized suspicion of involvement in criminal activity. Because San Jose shares its information, it also can be perused by people at nearly 300 other government agencies across California.
