Kansas Town Uses License Plate Readers to Go After Man Who Wrote Op-Ed

Police in Lenexa, Kansas used automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology to pursue a man who wrote a critical op-ed about the police department, according to reporting by Kansas public radio station KCUR. This is a rare public example of exactly the kind of abuse that we’ve long warned against when it comes to mass-surveillance systems like license plate readers. It also comes on the heels of reports about apparent misuse of license plate databases by ICE agents in Minnesota not for legitimate law enforcement purposes but to intimidate observers and protesters, and of a woman who was falsely accused of theft based on data from license plate readers.