Plainfield police testing automated license plate readers
The short version: CBS4 Indy reports Plainfield, Indiana police are piloting license plate readers, another small town quietly wiring itself into a nationwide surveillance net.
Our Take
Credit to CBS4 Indy for covering this while it's still a "test" — that's exactly the moment residents should be paying attention, not after the cameras are bolted to poles and folded into a permanent budget line. Plainfield is a small town, but that's the pattern: departments frame ALPRs as a narrow tool for solving specific crimes, then the footprint quietly expands, the data gets shared with other agencies, and nobody remembers voting on any of it.
The pitch is always the same — reduce crime, help investigations — but the video doesn't get into who else can query this data, how long it's stored, or whether Plainfield will share it through Flock's national network with agencies in other states. Those are the questions that actually matter once a "pilot" becomes permanent infrastructure tracking every car that passes through town, guilty or not.
If you live in or near Plainfield, check our camera map to see what's already been documented nearby, and use our take-action resources to push your local council for real answers on data retention, sharing agreements, and oversight before this test quietly becomes forever.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of CBS4 Indy, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.