As Federal Court Rules ALPRs are Mass Surveillance, EFF Gets Disappointing Ruling
The contradiction at the heart of this ruling is hard to miss: the court apparently recognized that ALPR systems function as mass surveillance, then still let San Jose off the hook for searching that data without a warrant. That's a strange place to land. If the technology collects location data on everyone who drives, treating those records as fair game for warrantless police access guts the Fourth Amendment in one practical stroke.
I'd want to see the full opinion, because the dismissal could rest on standing, on the third-party doctrine, or on something narrower like how the plaintiffs framed their injury. The way the court got there matters as much as the outcome. EFF and the ACLU have strong precedent to lean on, especially the Carpenter line of reasoning about long-term location tracking, and the appeal gives them a chance to push that logic into the ALPR context.
What worries me is the gap between how fast this surveillance infrastructure has spread and how slowly the law has caught up. Cities have been stockpiling plate data for years, and a single adverse ruling can set the tone for how dozens of other jurisdictions treat their own systems. I'll be watching the appeal closely.