Along Came a Spider

Automated License Plate Readers Are Making Americans Choose between Perceived Safety and Actual Liberty.

At first glance, the photo seems ordinary; a box on a pole outside of a McDonald’s.

In fact, it’s a Flock Safety automated license plate reader (ALPR), and they are EVERYWHERE.

ALPRs are part of one of the fastest-growing surveillance networks in the United States. These devices don’t advertise themselves loudly. There’s no neon sign, no branding beyond a small logo, no obvious signal of what they are doing. Yet behind that modest exterior lies one of the most comprehensive tracking infrastructures ever deployed in American public life.

And they are annihilating what little privacy Americans have left.