An Unexamined Life – Virginia Court Strikes Down Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs)

The article examines a Norfolk, Virginia ruling that suppressed evidence from a citywide Flock ALPR network capturing and retaining vehicle and occupant images and plate data for 30 days, framing the system as a dragnet that raises Fourth Amendment concerns. By situating ALPR surveillance alongside precedents like Katz, Jones, Carpenter, and Baltimore’s aerial program, it argues that the scale, persistence, and data-sharing of public-location tracking can transform ostensibly public information into privacy-invasive monitoring, with broader implications for AI-driven, mass data collection.