Some of the biggest concerns about surveillance technology are about how people misuse it.
The short version: The Chicago Justice Project spotlights how cops have used ALPR systems to stalk exes and love interests, proving surveillance tools inevitably get personal.
Our Take
The Chicago Justice Project's clip featuring John McCray Jones of the ACLU of Wisconsin cuts right to the rot at the center of ALPR deployment: these networks aren't just watching "criminals," they're watching everyone, and the people holding the login credentials are still just people. When an officer with a badge and a database query can pull up an ex-girlfriend's whereabouts in seconds, the technology stops being a public safety tool and becomes a stalking apparatus with a government logo on it. This isn't a hypothetical — it's a pattern that keeps surfacing in departments across the country.
What makes this especially infuriating is how predictable it is. Every time a new mass surveillance system rolls out, the pitch is the same: it's for finding stolen cars, Amber Alerts, violent fugitives. But audit logs are an afterthought, access controls are loose, and "misuse" gets treated as a personnel issue rather than a structural flaw. The lesson here isn't that a few bad apples slipped through — it's that any system built to track millions of innocent drivers will always be vulnerable to the person with access deciding to use it for something else entirely.
If you want to see how far this surveillance web already stretches in your own neighborhood, check our camera map. And if you're ready to push back against unchecked ALPR deployment where you live, our take-action page has concrete steps for getting in front of your city council before the next contract gets signed.
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.