EFF, ACLU Ask Sixth Circuit to Require Warrant for ALPR Searches in Cleveland Case

EFF and the ACLU filed an amicus brief in United States v. Sturdivant, an appeal before the Sixth Circuit arising from a series of robberies in and around Cleveland, Ohio. Police identified the suspect vehicle's make, model, and color from surveillance footage but did not know its plate. Officers then ran open-ended searches of Flock and ELSAG Automated License Plate Reader databases, located a vehicle linked to the defendant near robbery sites, and used that information to support his arrest.

The district court denied suppression, holding that Sturdivant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a license plate because the public can observe it. The brief contests that analogy, describing ALPR networks as a virtual time machine that lets law enforcement reconstruct past movements with a database query. It points to the scale and interconnection of Flock and ELSAG systems, and cites a recent federal district court ruling that called ALPRs indiscriminate mass surveillance capable of violating the Fourth Amendment.

The case sits within a broader pattern of scrutiny over commercial ALPR networks. EFF says Flock data has been shared by some agencies in ways that violate state law, and that weak audit rules have enabled misuse. At the same time, Texas and Florida have taken steps to pull back from ALPR networks after local opposition. Those developments show the technology is not merely a traffic tool, but a contested infrastructure for location data collection.

The brief asks the Sixth Circuit to require a warrant before police query ALPR databases for location history. That requested rule would apply to drivers whose movements are recorded by automated cameras and databases, not only criminal suspects. The brief argues that treating every plate as publicly observable ignores the difference between one glance and a searchable record of where a car has been.