Who Watches the Watchers? The Missing Guardrails on ALPR Surveillance
The short version: Professor Steven Keener lays out how ALPR data-sharing networks outpace any real oversight, and Chicago Justice Project gets him on record saying so.
Our Take
Professor Steven Keener's core point lands because it's so simple: nobody designed a rulebook before rolling out 100,000+ cameras and letting thousands of agencies trade plate data like baseball cards. Flock's pitch has always been "find the getaway car," but once a scan sits in a shared database, it can be pulled by an agency three states away for a purpose nobody voted on, nobody audited, and nobody outside a small circle of insiders even knows about. That's not a bug in the system — it's the system.
What makes this clip from Chicago Justice Project worth watching is that it's not activists yelling into the void, it's an academic calmly stating the obvious: mission creep isn't hypothetical, it's structural. When a network exists, someone will eventually use it for something other than the original stated purpose — immigration status, custody disputes, tracking an ex, political surveillance. Absent hard guardrails — audit trails, retention limits, purpose restrictions with teeth — "trust us" is the entire policy.
Credit to the Chicago Justice Project for putting a spotlight on the accountability gap instead of just the tech itself. If you want to see how far this data-sharing web actually reaches near you, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push your city council for real limits, our take-action guide is the place to start.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Chicago Justice Project, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.