A federal court in Virginia has ruled that the network of 176 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras deployed by Norfolk police does not amount to unconstitutional surveillance.
The 51-page opinion by US District Judge Mark Davis concluded that the system’s limited scope does not violate residents’ Fourth Amendment rights, even though it operates without warrants.
We obtained a copy of the opinion for you here.
Judge Davis wrote that “at least in Norfolk, Virginia, the answer is: not today,” referring to whether the city’s use of the technology had crossed into unconstitutional territory.
While acknowledging the potential for future overreach, he stated that the Norfolk program “captures only the public movements of vehicles that happen to pass by locations on a public street in view of an ALPR camera.”
The case, brought by the Institute for Justice on behalf of two Norfolk residents, challenged the cameras as a “dragnet” surveillance system. Plaintiffs argued that the constant collection of location data could reveal “the whole of a person’s movements.”
But Davis disagreed, finding that the 75 clusters of cameras scattered across 66 square miles were not pervasive enough to constitute “too permeating police surveillance.”
The ruling detailed how Norfolk’s cameras function. Davis noted that the Flock system photographs license plates and vehicle characteristics visible to the naked eye and that the data is retained for 21 days.
“Defendants’ 176 ALPR cameras are generally located at busy intersections, in commercial areas, and near freeway onramps and offramps,” he wrote, adding that “the 75 Flock camera clusters therefore monitor a very small percentage of Norfolk’s public roadways.”
Drawing from precedents such as Carpenter v. United States and Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department, Davis contrasted the limited snapshots collected by Norfolk’s system with the continuous and highly invasive monitoring condemned in those cases.
In Carpenter, he recalled, the Supreme Court found that mobile phone location data provided “an intimate window into a person’s life.”
By contrast, Davis wrote:
“the limited number of photographs available on a 21-day rolling basis from 75 camera clusters in Norfolk does not track the whole of a person’s movements nor does it provide an intimate window into where citizens drive, park, visit, linger, sleep, or patronize.”
He emphasized that, on average, plaintiffs’ vehicles were photographed two to three times per day, with captures “miles and hours apart.”
These “data points are infrequent and often widely spaced,” Davis wrote, finding that the system “is not like an ankle monitor attached to that citizen (or even to their car).”
Responding to the plaintiffs’ claim that ALPR images could be merged with other investigative materials to reconstruct an individual’s travel history, Davis rejected what he called a “jigsaw theory.”
He wrote:
“Neither Carpenter nor Beautiful Struggle supports Plaintiff’s argument that the collection and analysis of 2 or 3 (or even several more) scattered ALPR data points, sometimes miles and hours apart, constitutes a ‘search’ simply because this data contributes one or more pieces to a larger investigative jigsaw puzzle.”
The court acknowledged that “rapid technological advances, such as the rise of artificial intelligence, make it impossible to predict how police surveillance will evolve,” cautioning that “the Fourth Amendment analysis must remain nimble even as it remains grounded in founding-era traditions.”
Still, Davis concluded that Norfolk’s current use did not yet reach the threshold of a constitutional violation.
“While ALPR surveillance could become too intrusive and run afoul of constitutional privacy standards at some point,” he wrote, “the answer is: not today.”
Lee Schmidt, one of the plaintiffs whose car was recorded 475 times over four months, said after the ruling: “Although I’m of course disappointed by the court’s decision, I remain committed to fighting against this dragnet warrantless surveillance.”
The ruling shows that courts remain hesitant to draw firm boundaries around emerging surveillance technologies until their reach becomes overwhelming.
Yet as Judge Davis himself warned, the question of “when” automated tracking becomes unconstitutional remains unresolved, and likely inevitable as surveillance networks expand.
