San Jose's 'warrantless' license plate queries land cops in court

Digital rights groups argue cameras used to unconstitutionally surveil locals

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) are suing the City of San Jose and its police department over alleged abuses of automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) technology.

The lawsuit [PDF], brought on behalf of the Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations – California (CAIR-CA), alleges that the city police department's use of ALPR affords it invasive capabilities to track an individual's location.

It cited the police department's 261,711 "warrantless searches" of its ALPR database between June 2024 and 2025 and how the city does not require any suspicion of wrongdoing before carrying out these searches as one of the reasons for the legal challenge.

The digital rights group further argued that those who regularly drive through areas overseen by the 474 ALPR cameras across the city are exposed to the potential for location tracking through their travel patterns.

This, the lawsuit alleges, can "provide an intimate window into a person's life" that reveals where they work, where their children attend school, their places of worship, when and where they attend medical appointments, and whether they attend protests.

"It could also reveal whether a person crossed state lines to seek healthcare in California," the complaint adds, alluding to the state's more lenient rules on abortion. Four of the 474 ALPR cameras are situated at "two major intersections outside of a reproductive health clinic."

The lawsuit does not seek to undermine the San Jose Police Department's (SJPD) right to use the data for legitimate crime-fighting purposes, but aims to have warrantless searches declared unconstitutional.

The EFF and ACLU-NC claim that the warrantless searches violate citizens' Fourth Amendment rights, and the California Constitution's protections against unreasonable searches and its guarantee of privacy.

They also claim that few other police departments in California oversee as many ALPR cameras as San Jose, and it's also common for the data they collect to be stored for as long as a year.

According to data supplied by Flock's transparency portal, San Francisco, which has a smaller population than San Jose, has 494 cameras in operation, while even smaller cities such as Bakersfield and Oakland have fewer but similar numbers – 381 and 293, respectively. 

San Diego, a larger city by population, has exactly 500, and the figures for Los Angeles are incomplete, since Flock only supplies data for the central police department, which has 11 LPR "and other cameras."

San Francisco is the only other major police department to retain data for a year, with most others storing it for 30 days.

The lawsuit further highlights the types of data captured by San Jose's ALPR cameras, which go beyond the license plate alone.

These include the individuals within the vehicle, bumper stickers with political or other messages, make, model, color, and other details, depending on the camera's position, as well as GPS coordinates and date and time information, the lawsuit claims.

Zahra Billoo, executive director at CAIR San Francisco Bay Area, said: "For years, San Jose has quietly built one of the most sweeping license plate surveillance systems in the state, funded by the very residents whose lives it tracks.

"For Muslim, immigrant, and other marginalized communities that already live with profiling, the idea that police can map your trips to the mosque, your lawyer, or your doctor – without a warrant – is chilling. The California Constitution promises real privacy protections, and this lawsuit is about making sure those promises still mean something for everyone who drives through San Jose."

Huy Tran, executive director at SIREN, added: "This case does not raise the question of whether these cameras should be used. What we need to guard against is a surveillance state, particularly when we have seen other cities or counties violate laws that prohibit collaborating with ICE. 

"We can protect the privacy rights of our residents with one simple rule: Access to the data should only happen once approved under a judicial warrant."

According to the SJPD's policy document [PDF] on ALPR use, the technology must only be used in a way that is consistent with citizens' Fourth Amendment rights.

Authorized uses for the cameras include locating stolen or wanted vehicles; locating suspects, witnesses, and victims of crimes; locating missing persons; protecting participants at special events; and protecting critical infrastructure sites.

"While I can't comment on pending litigation, I can tell you that pursuant to state law we have built in robust data privacy and security measures throughout our ALPR system, including regular deletion of collected data that is not being actively used in an investigation," said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. "While we take seriously our responsibility for data privacy and security, we can't let fear of new tools get in the way of the safety of our families, especially given that this system is a big part of the reason we've solved 100% of homicides over the past three years." ®

Editor's note: This story was amended post-publication with comment from San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.