Privacy activists call on California to remove covert license plate readers

More than two dozen privacy and advocacy organizations are calling on California Gov. Gavin Newsom to remove a network of covert license plate readers deployed across Southern California that the groups say feed data into a controversial U.S. Border Patrol predictive domestic intelligence program that scans the nation’s roads for suspicious travel patterns.

“We request that your administration investigate and issue the affected permits, revoke them, and initiate the removal of these devices,” read the letter sent Tuesday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Imperial Valley Equity and Justice and other nonprofits.

An Associated Press investigation published in November found that the U.S. Border Patrol, an agency under U.S. Customs and Border Protection, had hidden license plate readers in regular traffic safety equipment. Data collected by Border Patrol license plate readers was then fed into a predictive intelligence program monitoring millions of U.S. drivers across the country to identify and detain individuals whose travel habits are deemed suspicious.

AP obtained land use permits from Arizona showing that the Border Patrol went to great lengths to conceal its surveillance equipment in that state, camouflaging it by placing it in orange and yellow construction barrels that dot the highways.

The letter said the group’s researchers identified a similar network of devices in California, finding about 40 license plate readers in San Diego and Imperial counties, both of which border Mexico. More than two dozen plate readers identified by the groups were hidden in construction barrels.

They could not determine who owns each device, but the groups said in the letter that they had obtained permits from the California Department of Transportation, showing that the Border Patrol and Drug Enforcement Administration had requested permission to place readers along state highways. The DEA shares its license plate reader data with Border Patrol, documents show.

The letter cited AP reporting, which revealed that the Border Patrol used a network of cameras to scan and record information on vehicle license plates. An algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on their origin, destination and the route they took. Agents appeared to be looking for vehicles making short trips to the border region, saying the trips were indicative of potential drug or human trafficking.

Federal agents, in turn, sometimes refer drivers they deem suspicious to local law enforcement who conduct a traffic stop citing a reason such as speeding or lane-changing violations. Drivers often have no idea that they have been involved in a predictive intelligence program run by a federal agency.

The AP identified at least two cases in which California residents appeared to have been caught up in Border Patrol surveillance of domestic travel. In a 2024 incident described in court documents, a Border Patrol agent arrested the driver of a Nissan Altima based in part on vehicle movement data showing that it took the driver six hours to travel approximately 50 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border to Oceanside, California, where the agent was patrolling.

“This type of delay in travel after crossing the international border from Mexico is a common tactic used by those involved in illicit smuggling,” the agent wrote in a court document.

In another case, Border Patrol agents said in a 2023 court document that they stopped a woman at an internal checkpoint because she took a circuitous route from Los Angeles to Phoenix. In both cases, law enforcement accused the drivers of smuggling immigrants into the country and sought to seize their property or charge them with a crime.

The intelligence program, which existed under administrations of both parties, has attracted the attention of lawmakers since the AP revealed its existence last year.

The California Department of Transportation and the office of Newsom, a Democrat, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Courts have generally upheld the collection of license plates on public roads, but have restricted access without a government warrant to other types of persistent tracking data that could reveal sensitive details about people’s movements, such as GPS devices or cell phone location data. Some scholars and civil liberties advocates argue that large-scale collection systems such as plate readers could be unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.

“Increasingly, courts are recognizing that the use of surveillance technologies may violate Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Although this area of ​​law is still developing, the use of LPR and predictive algorithms to track and report the movements of individuals represents the type of large-scale surveillance that should raise constitutional concerns,” the organizations wrote.

CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but previously said the agency uses plate readers to help identify threats and disrupt criminal networks and that their use of the technology is “governed by a strict, multi-tiered policy framework, as well as federal law and constitutional protections, to ensure the technology is applied responsibly and for clearly defined security purposes.”

The DEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Burke reported from San Francisco. Tau reported from Washington.

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Contact AP’s global investigations team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/.