Could N.J. crack down on Flock cameras?

Our Take

Credit to NJ.com's Lauren Raposa, Jana Cholakovska, and Gavin Schweiger for digging into just how saturated New Jersey has become with automated license plate readers. When 523 out of 530 law enforcement agencies in a single state are running ALPRs, that's not a patchwork of local pilot programs anymore — it's a statewide surveillance grid that happened with almost no public debate.

Sen. Michael Testa's promised bill is worth watching, but the details matter more than the headline. "Limits" on ALPRs can mean anything from a real warrant requirement and short data retention windows to toothless guidelines that let departments keep doing exactly what they're doing while checking a compliance box. Flock and its law enforcement partners have gotten very good at surviving "reform" that changes nothing about who can query your movements, for how long, or why. New Jersey residents should be asking now: will this bill cap retention, ban data sharing with ICE and out-of-state agencies, and give the public a way to see how the system is actually used — not just how it's supposed to be used.

If you want to see how dense the camera network already is near you, check our map, and if Testa's bill starts moving, our take-action page has tools to make sure your legislators hear from constituents, not just police unions and Flock lobbyists.