We often hear talk of “Big Brother,” especially in pop culture. But long before it was a reality TV show, it was introduced in George Orwell’s dystopian novel, “1984,” as the unseen character – the omnipotent eyes of government watching every move of every person.
When I first read “1984” in school, I could not fathom living in such a society. The novel’s totalitarian government controlled its citizens through pervasive, 24-hour surveillance, with two-way television screens in homes and public spaces, hidden microphones, physical patrols and secret police who monitored every movement, expression and thought. The lack of privacy was terrifying!
But 2026 is starting to feel a little bit like “1984.” Big Brother is real and right here in North Dakota. Automated license plate readers, like those made by Flock Safety, are making our trips to the grocery store, to work and to school into a quiet act of mass government surveillance – threatening our privacy and our Fourth Amendment rights.
Flock’s ALPR cameras, after all, are not like normal traffic cameras. They are not speed cameras or “red light” cameras. Rather, they are cameras used along roadways throughout North Dakota that quickly take thousands of snapshots of license plates as vehicles drive by.
This surveillance technology records and tracks every car that comes into view, and an AI algorithm catalogs the make, model, color, license plate number, bumper stickers and even scratches. This personal information is then uploaded into a nationwide database that any law enforcement agency with a Flock contract can search — with few regulations or oversight on how they use what they find.
Flock provides one of the most widely used ALPR systems, but they aren't the only company trying to make a buck by spying on us. Axon, Vigilant Solutions (a subsidiary of Motorola Solutions), Genetec, PlateSmart, Innova Systems, Rekor, ELSAG, Perceptics and Jenoptik are a few of the other leading companies selling ALPRs to police, private companies and others.
But it doesn't matter which company has its creepy cameras in your neighborhood; they all have the same problems: a lack of transparency, oversight and regulation into how they collect, store, and use our data, and how to hold public and private actors accountable if they abuse it.
While some say if you are not doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t be worried about being tracked by these cameras. But our concern is not that ALPRs are being used to, say, catch a car thief. Our concern is that in the process of tracking down a legitimate car thief, the government is vastly overreaching and creating a massive national database that tracks all of us all day long.
Just think about how much someone could learn about your life if cameras constantly tracked where you drove. They could find out which doctors you visit, what house of faith you worship at, who you visit or drive around with — even which political meetings and protests you attend.
Each observation may appear to be a simple data point. But aggregated over time, those observations can create a detailed map of your life.
There are, of course, valid uses of ALPRs, like checking license plates against lists of stolen cars or assisting in AMBER Alerts. But ALPRs, like all surveillance technologies, do not prevent crime or keep people safe. Instead, right now, we have warrantless, dragnet surveillance of drivers without any probable cause or reasonable suspicion – and we’ve already seen how this mass surveillance tool can be weaponized and abused by law enforcement. ICE and CBP have repeatedly used Flock to go after immigrants without warrants. Kansas police used them to pursue a man who wrote a critical op-ed about the department, while a Colorado police officer wrongfully accused a woman of theft based on a Flock hit without considering other evidence of her innocence. A mother and her children were held at gunpoint because ALPR cameras wrongly flagged their car as stolen.
We are not asking our elected leaders and law enforcement officials to abandon public safety. We are simply asking for proof that its surveillance system is actually limited to public-safety purposes. Just because this technology exists, after all, does not mean the Constitution no longer does.
We will not let North Dakota put mass surveillance technology ahead of our civil liberties. We will sleep easier when our law enforcement officials are operating within clear constitutional limits.
A version of this article also appeared in The Forum.
Ready to take action? Visit our Get the Flock Out page to learn more and sign our petition.
