ALPRs violate our 4th Amendment rights. Help us end these AI mass surveillance systems in Arizona.
East Valley Unite has current efforts in Chandler and Tempe, and we’re starting to organize in Queen Creek.
Mapping ALPRs
DeFlock.org is a crowdsourced map of ALPRs across the country. You can filter by company, and many other details. Our team contributes to this map, and keeps our own records of cameras in Chandler, and compares that with census data to show racial targeting. We are working to expand our in-depth maps to Tempe and Mesa. To report a camera to our team, email us here.
Nationwide DeFlock Map
Chandler In-Depth Map
Click on the layers button for labels/details.
About ALPRs (Automated License Plate Readers)
Key Points
- Groups like the ACLU recognize that ALPRs are a violation of expectations of privacy under the 4th amendment.
- ALPR systems constitute mass surveillance.
- This is not about law enforcement, this is about constitutional rights and privacy.
- City councils are supposed to represent their constituents. It is extremely clear that those constituents overwhelmingly oppose ALPRs.
- Any ALPR system is problematic for these reasons. This includes Flock, Axon, Motorola, and any other ALPR company.
What is an ALPR? – The Bottom Line
Automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, are cameras that capture information on every single vehicle that passes by. This includes not only a car’s license plate, but date, time, location, and increasingly, make, model, bumper stickers, dents, and any other identifiable characteristics that can be picked up by the AI systems embedded in this surveillance technology. This type of dragnet surveillance is what violates our constitutional rights. The ACLU argues that using ALPR systems gives the government “unprecedented powers of surveillance that upset traditional expectations of privacy in violation of the Fourth Amendment”. This is an issue that applies to all ALPRs, not just from Flock. This includes Axon, Motorola, Genetec, Leonardo, and any other ALPR company.
Warrantless Mass Surveillance
Cities around the country have adopted ALPRs, with over 120,000 reported across the country on the crowdsourced DeFlock map. Flock, just one ALPR company, scans license plates 20 billion times each month. This means ALPRs document millions of cars under the guise of fighting crime, without a warrant. In fact, city councils often adopt a contract with an ALPR company without a majority of citizens even being aware of the technology. Chances are, you weren’t aware Chandler, Tempe, or whatever city you live in had a contract until recently. At this scale, this is mass surveillance, and it’s not just done without consent, but against the massive will of the people organizing to oppose it.
To see this mass surveillance system visually, visit maps.deflock.org to see a map of reported ALPRs nationwide, a timeline of how they popped up, and a network of where data is shared between police agencies.
Abuse
The Institute for Justice keeps a database of cases of ALPR misuse. There are 146 instances so far, including 39 of stalking, and 4 in the Phoenix metro area (Chandler, Apache Junction, Goodyear, Surprise) that have been discovered since August 7. We don’t have the full answers about how ALPR data was misused in Chandler, Goodyear, or Surprise. Here are some examples of the misuse:
- In Texas, a sheriff’s deputy used 83,000 Flock ALPRs to find a woman who had allegedly had a medication abortion, at the behest of her abusive partner.
- In Georgia, a police chief tracked his ex-girlfriend and her teenage daughter roughly 600 times.
- In Apache Junction, a police officer tracked his wife.
Errors and Wrongful Arrests
Depending on the company, error rates can be extremely high. In Roseville, CA, an analysis by the police department found that in 71% of alerts, Flock’s machine-learning software incorrectly read the license plates, despite Flock claiming that in favorable conditions, 96% of license plate characters are identified correctly. Axon claims a 90% accuracy rate, which just means 10% are still misidentified, and we don’t have independent data yet to see if these claims are actually true.
This has led to numerous wrongful arrests. Here are some examples:
- In Volusia County, Florida, a Flock capture led officers to misidentify a driver’s car as one linked to a fatal accident; he spent 13 days in jail before the error was found.
- In Sherwood, Arkansas, a camera misread a digit on an innocent couple’s plate and flagged it as stolen. Officers ordered the couple out at gunpoint while their six-week-old baby remained alone in the back seat.
- In Toledo, Ohio a camera misread a “7” as a “2.” Officers detained the driver at gunpoint, deployed a police dog against him, and held him for several hours.
The ALPR Business Model Is Fundamentally Flawed
The whole business model of ALPR companies revolves around getting as much data as they can possibly get. These companies sell the data itself, so in an effort to make more profit, they are incentivized to get as much data as they can. This leads to companies such as Flock continuing to operate cameras after contracts have terminated, or even putting them back up without city permission. In an effort to pitch themselves as more useful to police departments, ALPR companies continuously add more features to track more characteristics of vehicles and people. This encroaches on our privacy rights even more.
When the public starts to realize what is being done, ALPR companies do everything they can to stop contracts from ending, in order to protect their profit margins. Flock has a whole guide for police departments on how to speak to city councils and the public about ALPRs to try and convince them that the technology is useful, good, and necessary.
Police themselves have even given false information in an effort to paint ALPRs in a positive light. Importantly, our argument against Flock is not anti-law enforcement; instead the way ALPRs have been used and presented is problematic.
When asked by Mayor Kevin Hartke near the beginning of the May 21 meeting, “So there is no cameras at Galveston School or anywhere off of Hamilton, the interior there, related to the items that we’re talking about tonight?”, the representative from Chandler Police responded, “No, sir.”
At a special study session on May 18, Chandler PD claimed that demographics do not play a role in camera placement, and that cameras are not placed in residential areas.
The police chief has also made several comments suggesting confirmation of previous claims.
Throughout the public comment period at the regular meeting, multiple people mentioned they had visited the camera at Galveston Elementary in-person days prior, and the camera, including the direction it was pointed in, can be seen on Google Maps street view. There are two other cameras on Hamilton St, and two others on Galveston St that would be considered in the “interior”, all pointed into the neighborhood rather than at the major roads, contrary to previous claims by the representative from Chandler Police. This square mile is also the only area of Chandler where about 60% of the population is Hispanic. The camera at Galveston Elementary did exist, cameras were in residential areas, and this high concentration of cameras was in the only area of the city where the majority of people are Hispanic.
After the public comment period, when pressed again about the camera pointed at the school, the Chandler Police Chief admitted, “that is a Flock camera on Galveston.” He then went on to say, “Since this meeting started, we sent people out there and we’ve removed that camera from that area.” We forced their hand, but they still gave false information, repeatedly.
All this is to maximize profits for these companies and the billionaires that own them. Billionaire Peter Thiel co-founded Palantir, and a venture capital firm he founded has also invested in Flock. According to the Colorado Sun, “Palantir has contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement worth nearly $140 million, and police departments across the U.S. accessed Denver’s Flock data for ICE- and immigration-related searches nearly 1,400 times between 2024 and 2025.” Trump bought as much as $5 million in Axon stock earlier this year. The ALPR business model fundamentally encourages corruption, increasing invasion of privacy, and manipulation.
ALPR Companies Have Sh*tty Security
404 Media has reported that “a security researcher found Flock accounts for sale on a Russian cybercrime forum”. They have also revealed that “using a commercial search engine” someone “very easily found the administration interfaces for dozens of … cameras… None of the data or video footage was encrypted. There was no username or password required.” This is not a secure way for police to track crime. It’s a mass surveillance system that has been and will be accessed by the wrong people, and not just corrupt police officers.
ALPR Data Finds Its Way To ICE
Many police agencies share data from ALPR cameras with ICE. Chandler specifically has shared data with Mesa Police, which has a 287(g) cooperative agreement with ICE. They have already searched Chandler ALPR data in response to requests from DHS. This gives an agency famous for violating the rule of law and the Constitution access to mass surveillance, and greatly increases their ability and reach. This creates a threat to the livelihoods of undocumented people, immigrants, and entire communities.
Below are direct quotes from an ABC 15 investigation into Chandler ALPR data sharing.
“A five-page internal audit log shows every time Chandler officers searched their own Flock data, and in most instances, a case number and a reason for the search were listed. It includes 454 searches related to about 70 investigations.”
“An external audit log for the same one-month period in January 2026 shows every time outside police agencies searched Chandler’s Flock data through automatic data sharing. That log included nearly 40,000 entries and was more than 500 pages long.”
“Records obtained by ABC15 show Chandler does share data with Mesa, which does have a police policy on cooperation with ICE and other immigration agencies.”
“A Mesa Police Department spokesperson confirmed one of their officers, assigned to the East Valley Fusion Center, did search Flock data in response to requests from the Department of Homeland Security for information regarding suspects who were at the center of criminal investigations. Those searches, from 2025, were marked as “immigration violations” in a Flock audit report viewed by ABC15.”
“Mesa police would not say how often these searches happen.”
To see a visualization of how different agencies share data with each other, go here.
Racial Targeting
ALPRs often target lower-income, black, and brown communities. A great local example of this is Flock in Chandler, where cameras heavily target Hispanic neighborhoods.
In early May, before the city council meeting, 9 of 40 cameras (22.5%) were within 1 square mile, just 1.5% of Chandler’s area. This is also the only area of the city where about 60-70% of the population is Hispanic.
You can see a map illustrating this here.
Useful Sites
This page: eastvalleyunite.org/alprs
Nationwide maps and information: deflock.org
Varied stories and information: 404media.co/tag/flock/
Nationwide database of surveillance tech: atlasofsurveillance.org