The FBI's Plan to Track Millions of Drivers: How a New Surveillance Network Could Work
The FBI's Plan to Track Millions of Drivers: How a New Surveillance Network Could Work
The FBI published a Request for Proposals on May 14, 2026 asking private companies to provide access to automated license plate reader (ALPR) networks across the United States. The contract would require near real-time data—meaning almost instant information—from cameras in 75 percent of U.S. locations and territories. The FBI's goal is to expand its existing surveillance capabilities by partnering with private companies that already operate these camera networks in communities across the country.
How License Plate Readers Work
Automated license plate readers are cameras mounted on patrol cars and fixed poles that capture images of vehicle license plates at high speed. The systems convert the plate numbers into searchable records that include timestamps and GPS coordinates—essentially a timestamped record of where and when each vehicle was spotted.
These records flow into centralized databases accessible across jurisdictional boundaries. The FBI already uses these systems across 46 states, the District of Columbia, 33 local agencies, and one federal agency. The bureau has used them to locate 818 people in its Wanted Persons File and 19 missing persons. Beyond criminal investigations, the FBI uses ALPR data for detecting smuggling operations and conducting intelligence work paired with public information like social media searches.
The FBI's new procurement would require contractors to deliver data in near real-time—not hours or days later, but almost immediately—and to cover 75 percent of the nation's roads and highways. This level of coverage and speed would create one of the most comprehensive federal surveillance networks ever built.
The Existing Surveillance Foundation
The FBI is not starting from scratch. Federal agencies already operate their own ALPR systems and partner with state and local police departments. The U.S. Border Patrol runs a program that monitors millions of Americans nationwide using license plate readers to identify people with what it describes as suspicious travel patterns. The Department of Homeland Security uses ALPR cameras to detect, identify, apprehend, and remove individuals crossing the border illegally.
The federal government received Recovery Act funding years ago to build these systems, treating license plate readers as intelligence-gathering tools. Over time, ALPR networks have been combined with other surveillance technologies—body cameras, location tracking, cellular monitoring devices, and video cameras—to create comprehensive monitoring systems that Congressional hearings have examined as "digital dragnets."
Commercial Companies Stepping In
Private companies like Flock Safety now operate automated license plate readers in more than 4,000 American communities. These private networks are where the FBI is looking to expand its reach.
However, partnerships between federal agencies and private ALPR companies have hit some turbulence. Flock Safety paused its pilot programs with the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection because of confusion about how the agencies were using the data. An audit later showed that Customs and Border Protection had accessed Illinois license plate data in ways that violated state law, revealing conflicts between federal agency operations and state-level privacy rules.
The vulnerability of these systems became public when photos and license plate data collected at a U.S. border crossing were exposed in a cyberattack on a Customs and Border Protection contractor. Expanding these networks means expanding the number of places where someone's data could be hacked or misused.
What This Means: Scale and Scope
The existing system already collects a lot of data. The proposed FBI expansion would dramatically increase the scale and speed. Consider the difference: today, police in some jurisdictions can query ALPR databases to track a specific vehicle after a crime occurs. A nationwide near real-time system would mean the FBI could see where a vehicle is going almost as it's happening, and could build detailed maps of where millions of drivers go every day—their routines, their destinations, their associates.
This kind of capability raises questions worth examining carefully. Historically, when we have built surveillance systems for one legitimate purpose, they have often expanded far beyond their original scope—we saw this pattern with wiretapping infrastructure in the twentieth century, which eventually served purposes its architects never anticipated. The technical ability to track vehicles nationwide in near real-time now exists. Whether that capability should be deployed at this scale is a question for policymakers, lawmakers, and the public, not one this technology settles on its own.
The Push Back
Some cities and local governments are refusing to participate. Municipal officials across the country have rejected or are resisting partnerships with Flock and other ALPR operators, citing concerns that these systems are error-prone and create serious civil liberties problems. Local leaders recognize that allowing ALPR networks in their communities effectively enrolls them in a federal surveillance apparatus.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU of Southern California have filed records requests seeking to understand how police departments use these systems. Congressional hearings have examined federal ALPR programs, with Senator Ed Markey calling the Border Patrol's license plate reader program "an invasive surveillance network that poses a serious threat to privacy and civil liberties."
The technical limitations of ALPR systems add another concern. The systems can search databases to track vehicles across time and space without warrants or suspicion of wronging—they simply record that a vehicle was here at this time and there at that time. Aggregated over months or years, these records create detailed movement profiles that reveal not just criminal patterns, but routines, relationships, and personal associations that have nothing to do with any investigation.
What Comes Next
The FBI's proposal to expand ALPR coverage to 75 percent of the nation with near real-time data represents a significant step in federal surveillance capability. Whether this network will be built depends in part on Congressional willingness to fund it, the security and jurisdictional complications that arise from coordinating with private operators, and the growing local and civil liberties resistance to ALPR deployment. The technical architecture is ready. The policy question—whether America should build it—remains open.
