Home Depot and Lowe's are installing cameras with license plate readers in their parking lots in an

Our Take

Credit to Wild Clips for catching this one: big box retailers like Home Depot and Lowe's reportedly rolling out license plate readers in their own parking lots. We haven't independently verified every detail of the vendor or rollout scope, but the trend itself isn't surprising. ALPR cameras have gotten cheap and easy to bolt onto a light pole, and "loss prevention" is a convenient justification for building a database of who's shopping where and when.

The problem is the same one we flag with police-run Flock Safety networks: once a camera reads your plate, that data point doesn't just vanish. It can get logged, stored, shared, or subpoenaed, often with zero public disclosure about retention windows or who gets access. A private company parking lot becomes one more node in the sprawling web of plate surveillance that most Americans never consented to and don't know exists. Retail ALPR deployments deserve the same scrutiny as government ones — maybe more, since there's even less regulatory oversight on a corporate camera than a police one.

If you want to see how dense this surveillance grid already is in your area, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back on unchecked plate tracking — whether it's a police department or a hardware store — our take-action page has concrete steps.