{"id":377821,"date":"2026-09-14T09:48:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T16:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/?p=377821"},"modified":"2026-09-14T09:48:54","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T16:48:54","slug":"trump-backs-flock-license-plate-cameras-privacy-concerns-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/trump-backs-flock-license-plate-cameras-privacy-concerns-return\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump backs Flock license plate cameras: privacy concerns return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Donald Trump has come out in favor of automated license plate readers, or ALPR cameras, arguing that they help police solve crimes and that the privacy cost is a fair trade. His comments put the technology back at the center of the debate, and they bring fresh attention to <a href=\"https:\/\/flock-safety.en.softonic.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Flock Safety<\/a>, which says it operates <strong>120,000 cameras<\/strong>, handles billions of scans each month, and helped with 1 million investigations in 2025, along with 10,000 missing-person cases.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The objections haven&#8217;t changed. Critics say ALPR systems let police collect huge amounts of data on drivers who haven&#8217;t done anything wrong: license plates, timestamps, and <strong>location records<\/strong>, often without a warrant, probable cause, or reasonable suspicion. That can include routine trips to work, visits to doctors, attendance at protests, and travel to places of worship.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They also point to false matches and cases where the systems were allegedly used for stalking. The Los Angeles Police Department walked away from its <a href=\"https:\/\/en.softonic.com\/articles\/why-i-might-be-switching-to-flock\" rel=\"noopener\">Flock Safety<\/a> contract over questions about who controls the data and how it&#8217;s shared. Other departments have paused their agreements or dropped them outright. And an August YouGov poll showed the public split against police use, with <strong>46% opposed<\/strong> and 38% in support, including in places such as Houston-area communities, Toledo, and Kyle, according to YouGov.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyone who pays attention to surveillance policy in the US should keep an eye on this.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Expect the American Civil Liberties Union to keep pressing for tighter rules on data retention, access, and <strong>warrants<\/strong>. Expect the industry to back guardrails while resisting routine warrant requirements. And expect more scrutiny of America&#8217;s patchwork approach, especially when it&#8217;s set beside the clearer frameworks used in the UK, the EU, and Canada.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donald Trump has come out in favor of automated license plate readers, or ALPR cameras, arguing that they help police solve crimes and that the privacy cost is a fair trade. His comments put the technology back at the center of the debate, and they bring fresh attention to Flock Safety, which says it operates &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/trump-backs-flock-license-plate-cameras-privacy-concerns-return\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Trump backs Flock license plate cameras: privacy concerns return&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9349,"featured_media":377820,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-377821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9349"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":377822,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377821\/revisions\/377822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377821"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=377821"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=377821"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=377821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}