License Plate Cameras Will Soon Track Your Phone

Our Take

Dylan Schmidt's video gets at something we've been watching closely: ALPR companies aren't content with just reading plates anymore. Flock Safety and its competitors have been quietly rolling out sensors that pick up Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals, meaning the box on the pole isn't just logging your car — it's potentially logging the unique signature of the phone in your pocket. That's a meaningful escalation, because a plate can be swapped or obscured, but most people carry the same phone everywhere, all day, every day.

This matters because it collapses the distance between 'tracking a vehicle' and 'tracking a person.' Once camera networks start correlating plate reads with device identifiers, law enforcement and the private companies running these systems get a much richer, more persistent picture of where you go and who you're with — all without a warrant, and often without any public vote on whether residents even want this technology in their town. Credit to Dylan Schmidt for putting this expansion on the radar; it's the kind of quiet mission-creep that deserves way more scrutiny than it gets.

If you want to see how far this infrastructure has already spread near you, check our map, and if you'd rather not wait for your city council to ask the public first, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back.