SB 1111 | FEBRUARY 10, 2026 | Apache Junction Police Chief Pooley

Our Take

Jen's Two Cents does something useful here: she puts a camera on the people actually lobbying for ALPR expansion, rather than letting the pitch stay abstract. Chief Michael Pooley, speaking for 60 Arizona departments through the Chiefs of Police Association, gives senators the line we hear in statehouse after statehouse — this tech is "critical," it makes communities safer, and of course there's an acknowledgment that "safeguards" are needed. That last part is doing a lot of quiet work. Safeguards are easy to promise in a hearing room and hard to find once a bill becomes law and a few hundred more cameras go up along a state's highways.

What's missing from this kind of testimony is almost always the specifics: who audits the search logs, how long data sits in a database, whether out-of-state agencies or federal partners can pull Arizona plate reads, and what happens when a system flags an innocent driver. "Make this one of the safest places to live and visit" is a mission statement, not a policy. Mass license-plate tracking doesn't stay narrowly scoped to the headline-grabbing crimes used to justify it — it becomes a permanent record of ordinary people's movements, built without anyone voting on it directly.

If you're in Arizona or anywhere SB 1111-style bills are moving, this is the moment to pay attention, not after the cameras are bolted to the poles. Check our camera map to see what's already tracking your plate, and use our take-action resources to tell your legislators that "trust us, there will be safeguards" isn't a substitute for enforceable limits written into the bill itself.