05/27/2026
Excerpt: A bipartisan group of lawmakers is preparing to launch one of the biggest attacks yet on police surveillance technology in America, and it could shut down automated license plate reader systems nationwide almost overnight.
The amendment, expected to be introduced during a House committee markup hearing Thursday, would ban recipients of federal highway funding from using automated license plate readers for anything except toll collection. On paper, the proposal is only one sentence long. In practice, it could cripple one of the fastest-growing surveillance systems in the country.
That’s where things change.
Automated license plate reader systems, commonly called ALPRs, have quietly spread across American roads over the past several years. Cameras mounted on traffic lights, overpasses, poles, and police vehicles photograph passing plates, log timestamps and locations, and feed that information into searchable databases shared between agencies. Supporters call them crime-fighting tools. Critics call them a rolling surveillance dragnet.
Now Congress is stepping directly into the fight.
The amendment is being sponsored by Representative Scott Perry, a Republican from Pennsylvania and member of the Freedom Caucus, alongside Democratic Representative Jesús “Chuy” García of Illinois. The two lawmakers come from opposite ideological camps, but both appear aligned on one issue: concern over how far vehicle tracking technology has expanded without meaningful limits.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is preparing to launch one of the biggest attacks yet on police surveillance technology in America, and it could shut down automated license plate reader systems nation...