Revisiting the failed Arizona bill that tried to regulate license plate readers
The short version: Arizona's SB 1111 would have set statewide ALPR guardrails, but it died — leaving Flock cameras to spread unchecked across the state.
Our Take
Credit to Zach Prelutsky and Arizona's Family for circling back on this, because failed privacy bills tend to vanish from the news cycle the moment they die in committee — and that's exactly when the cameras keep multiplying. SB 1111 was Arizona's shot at putting basic guardrails on license plate readers: things like retention limits, audit trails, and some accountability for who gets to query the data and why. It didn't pass, which means the status quo wins by default — a status quo where local police departments and private vendors like Flock Safety get to set their own rules, or no rules at all.
This is the pattern we track constantly at DeFlock: a few lawmakers raise the alarm, a hearing gets held, maybe a local news segment runs, and then nothing changes because there's no sustained public pressure to counter the lobbying from surveillance vendors and the law enforcement agencies that have come to depend on their tech. Meanwhile the camera count keeps climbing in the background, feeding a nationwide, largely unregulated network of plate-read data that outlives any single department's good intentions.
If you're in Arizona and this story bugs you, don't let it end with a shrug. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your streets, and use our take-action resources to push your own state legislators to bring something like SB 1111 back — and actually get it across the finish line this time.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Arizona’s Family (3TV / CBS 5), published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.