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The detail that matters is not the 20 billion license plates scanned every month. It is how the cameras got there.

Across 49 states, over 100,000 automated license plate readers run by private vendor Flock Safety are currently tracking vehicles. Most of them were never voted on by the public.

In many cities, these highly invasive systems are installed through quiet administrative agreements. Police chiefs and city managers simply sign up for “free trials,” bypassing elected officials entirely. Once activated, the network operates as a nationwide dragnet. Federal and out-of-state agencies are running millions of searches on these databases, tracking the daily movements of citizens who are suspected of no crimes at all.

A new piece of model legislation—the Automated License Plate Surveillance Consent and Accountability Act—is designed to close the loophole.

Instead of trying to regulate the data after it is collected, the law targets the initial handshake. It requires a formal public ordinance, a recorded council vote, and public hearings before a single camera goes up.

If an official bypasses this process to quietly install surveillance? The proposal hits them with up to five years in prison. It turns unapproved local tracking into a felony.