The Daily Populous Saturday May 23rd, 2026 morning edition
Authored by wired.com and submitted by pankswork

US lawmakers plan to introduce an amendment Thursday at a House committee markup hearing that would prohibit any recipient of federal highway funding from using automated license plate readers for any purpose other than tolling—a sweeping restriction that, if adopted, would bring an immediate end to state and local ALPR programs across the United States.

The amendment, obtained first by WIRED, is sponsored by Representative Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican and Freedom Caucus member, and Representative Jesús “Chuy” García, an Illinois progressive whose state has become a flash point in the national fight over ALPR misuse.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will mark up the underlying bill—a $580 billion, five-year reauthorization of federal surface transportation programs—at 10 am ET on Thursday.

Neither Perry nor García's offices immediately responded to WIRED's request for comment.

The amendment runs a single sentence: “A recipient of assistance under Title 23, United States Code, may not use automated license plate readers for any purpose other than tolling.”

The amendment is brief, but its reach would be vast. Title 23 funds roughly a quarter of all public road mileage in the US, including most state and county arteries and many city streets where ALPR cameras are becoming ubiquitous. Conditioning that funding on a ban of the technology would, in practical effect, force any state, county, or municipality that takes federal highway money (essentially all of them) to either remove the cameras or restructure their use around tolling alone.

The amendment’s cosponsors, Perry and García, represent opposite ends of the House’s ideological spectrum but converge on a surveillance concern that has gathered momentum in legislatures and city halls across the US as ALPR networks have quietly become a pervasive layer of American road infrastructure.

ALPR cameras—mounted on poles, overpasses, traffic signals, and police cruisers—photograph every passing license plate, log times and locations, and feed data into searchable databases shared across agencies and jurisdictions.

In Illinois, where García's district sits, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced last August that an audit by his office had found Flock Group—the Atlanta-based company that operates the country's largest ALPR network—in violation of state law for giving US Customs and Border Protection access to Illinois ALPR data. Giannoulias ordered the company to cut off federal access.

Flock said at the time that it would pause federal pilots nationwide, arrangements the company had previously denied existed in what Flock CEO and founder Garrett Langley said were public statements that “inadvertently provided inaccurate information.”

In response to WIRED's request for comment, Flock spokesperson Josh Thomas points to recent coverage of police advocates in Austin, Texas, championing ALPRs after law enforcement in Manor, a nearby suburb, said they used the technology to help apprehend one of three suspects they claim are connected to a dozen shootings and other recent crimes.

Austin city manager TC Broadnax effectively ended the city's use of Flock cameras last year amid public outcry over privacy concerns and against the wishes of the Austin Police Department.

“We hope the Committee members review this amendment carefully before heading down a similar path that would leave our first responders without the tools they need to keep residents safe,” Thomas says.

Privacy advocates have long warned that the aggregation of license plate data amounts to a de facto warrantless tracking system. New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice has documented the integration of ALPR feeds into police data-fusion systems that combine plate data with surveillance and social media monitoring. And the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights nonprofit, has documented a range of police misuse, including the past targeting of mosques and the disproportionate deployment of the technology in low-income neighborhoods.

CockBrother on May 22nd, 2026 at 17:26 UTC »

I'd have to read the actual bill. This actually sounds more like a giveaway to Flock by ensuring that local authorities can't set up THEIR OWN cameras.

That would be the opposite of uplifting!

ETA: We need to consider more carefully the words of the amendment rather than what we'd like it to mean and go beyond the headline.

The complete text apparently reads: "A recipient of assistance under Title 23, United States Code, may not use automated license plate readers for any purpose other than tolling."

A few notes of caution, this amendment does not yet appear on the house web site for the bill:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/8870/amendments

If the wording is accurate, governments and government agencies are the recipients those are the organizations that would be barred from "using" license plate readers. It does not stop companies like Flock from collecting it. And it does not necessarily mean they cannot use license plate reader data.

From a statutory interpretation standpoint, there is a significant distinction between regulating the tool and regulating the information derived from that tool. The text prohibits the "use of automated license plate readers." It does not explicitly prohibit the use, purchase, or review of "license plate reader data" generated by third parties.

Consider that if a government agency is banned from using a specific type of metal detector to search for artifacts, that ban restricts them from operating the device themselves. It does not necessarily prevent them from buying a map from a private treasure hunter who used that exact metal detector to find the artifacts and then sold the coordinates. The agency isn't using the detector, they are using the product of the tool that someone else used to make the map.

"Use" specifically applies to "license plate readers" and not license plate reader data. This creates a potential workaround where municipalities cancel their own contracts for hardware but instead subscribe to data feeds from private vendors who own the cameras. Unless the statute is amended to close the "third-party doctrine" loophole regarding data purchased from private entities, the surveillance network could remain intact, just privatized.

romaraahallow on May 22nd, 2026 at 17:24 UTC »

Would this also ban corporate surveillance like flock cameras?

XI_Vanquish_IX on May 22nd, 2026 at 17:22 UTC »

Will have to keep an eye on this one. Big implications if it happens. Capital IF