Tempe considers ban on automated license plate readers
The short version: Tempe weighs banning ALPRs, but a city ban won't touch the dozens of privately owned Flock cameras already blanketing the area.
Our Take
Credit to 12 News for covering Tempe's push to ban automated license plate readers, but the real story here is the loophole baked into any municipal ban: private Flock cameras — the ones HOAs, apartment complexes, and business parks install on their own dime — would keep right on scanning and logging every plate that passes. A city council vote feels like progress, but if the dragnet stays up on private property and the data still flows into the same shared network, residents haven't actually opted out of mass surveillance. They've just moved the cameras off the city's books.
This is the pattern we keep seeing across the country: public pressure forces a policy win on paper, while the underlying infrastructure of tracking everyone's movements stays fully operational. Flock's business model depends on blurring the line between "government surveillance" and "private security," and that distinction matters a lot less to the person whose daily commute is being logged, time-stamped, and shared than it does to the lawyers drafting city ordinances.
If you're in Tempe or anywhere else wondering what's actually watching you, check our camera map to see what's already deployed nearby, and head to our take-action page if you want to push for policies that actually close these private-camera loopholes instead of just relocating the problem.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of 12 News, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.