Federal Judge Rules Flock’s AI License Plate Readers Violate Fourth Amendment

A federal judge in Oklahoma ruled that a police officer's use of Flock's automated license plate reader (ALPR) system without a warrant constitutes "indiscriminate mass surveillance" and violates the Fourth Amendment. The officer queried the Flock network solely because the driver had a California license plate, pulling more than 50 individual location records from the prior month to reconstruct her travel history. Judge Sara Hill suppressed all evidence from the resulting vehicle search, which had uncovered 91 pounds of methamphetamine. The Flock system currently logs over 100,000 warrantless searches every month, according to audit logs viewed by 404 Media. Flock expects the ruling to be appealed, arguing it contradicts previous decisions and does not set a controlling precedent for other jurisdictions. "The Court finds that because the ALPR systems Alaniz used to search Kyle’s historical location information intruded on her reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of her physical movements, it was a search under the Fourth Amendment." — Judge Sara Hill