San Jose police track drivers' locations without warrants
The San Jose Police Department operates a vast network of nearly 500 automated license plate readers that record the plate number, location, date, and time of passing vehicles. If you drive in the city, there's a good chance these high-speed surveillance cameras will capture your daily comings and goings. But that's not even the worst part.
SJPD retains millions of records of drivers' movements for an entire year and routinely allows its own officers and other law enforcement agencies across the state to search the database for location information without a warrant, in violation of the California Constitution. Police could abuse this unchecked power to track people's movements and pry into their private lives, uncovering where they live, work, worship, and receive medical care. And even though sharing license plate data with ICE and other federal and out-of-state law enforcement agencies is illegal under state law, Bay Area police departments are still doing it. With the Electronic Frontier Foundation, we sued San Jose to stop the city and SJPD from searching license plate data without first getting a warrant.
