The growing controversy surrounding automated license plate readers in Pennsylvania raises important questions about privacy, government authority, accountability, and the appropriate use of technology in law enforcement.
Those questions deserve thoughtful answers.
Recent media reporting about the growing opposition to Flock Safety cameras and the General Assembly’s unfinished consideration of legislation reflects a debate taking place in communities across the Commonwealth.
As leaders of the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association, we believe there is an important perspective that must remain central to this discussion: the responsibility of police chiefs and the broader law enforcement community to protect the public while preserving the constitutional rights of the people we serve.
These responsibilities are not competing interests. They are fundamental obligations of professional law enforcement.
The conversation should not be about choosing between effective policing and individual liberty. It should be about ensuring that Pennsylvania can protect both.
An important investigative tool
Every police leader understands that the outcome of a criminal investigation can depend on a single piece of timely information.
A vehicle associated with an abducted child. A suspect fleeing a violent crime. A stolen automobile traveling through several jurisdictions. A vehicle connected to a homicide investigation.
In each circumstance, information about a vehicle’s location can become an important investigative lead.
Automated license plate readers, commonly referred to as ALPRs, can help investigators identify vehicles associated with criminal activity and develop leads that might otherwise take considerable time and resources to obtain.
For smaller police departments, particularly those without extensive investigative personnel or specialized resources, access to appropriate technology can help bridge significant operational gaps.
In a Commonwealth with more than a thousand municipal police agencies, these capabilities can also support investigations that cross municipal and county boundaries.
However, ALPR information is an investigative lead, not proof of criminal conduct. A camera-generated alert does not establish who was driving, whether a crime occurred, or whether a particular person is guilty.
Professional policing requires verification, sound judgment, and adherence to constitutional standards.
Technology should assist police officers in making informed decisions. It should never replace the professional judgment and accountability expected of them.
Privacy concerns deserve more than reassurance
Those who question the expansion of automated license plate readers are raising legitimate concerns.
Modern ALPR systems do more than photograph a license plate. Depending on how a system is configured and interconnected, collected information may be retained, searched, and used to reconstruct a vehicle’s movements over time.
The implications for personal privacy are significant.
Pennsylvanians should not have to wonder whether ordinary activities—visiting a physician, attending a religious service, meeting with family, or participating in a lawful public gathering—could become part of an unnecessarily retained or improperly accessed government database.
Neither should they have to rely solely on assurances from a private technology company that their information will be protected.
Law enforcement executives understand that public confidence depends on more than good intentions. It requires enforceable standards, transparent policies, meaningful oversight, and consequences for misconduct.
Law enforcement should welcome legitimate scrutiny of powerful investigative technologies. Public accountability is not an obstacle to professional policing; it is one of its foundations.
Regulation, not an unrestricted system
In September, the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association presented its perspective before the House Judiciary and Transportation Committees.
Our position was straightforward: Pennsylvania should regulate the responsible use of automated license plate reader technology rather than eliminate an effective public safety and investigative tool.
That position also recognizes that responsible regulation must have substance.
A statewide framework should clearly define permissible law enforcement purposes, establish reasonable limitations on data retention, protect information against unauthorized access, restrict inappropriate sharing, and require documented searches and independent auditing.
Access should be limited to trained and authorized personnel, with supervisory review and enforceable consequences for abuse.
The public should also have access to meaningful information about how these systems are governed, including agency policies and aggregate usage and audit reporting, without compromising legitimate investigations.
And restrictions on data access must distinguish between a legitimate investigation, a time-sensitive emergency, and an attempt to monitor individuals without a lawful purpose.
These distinctions matter. A missing child investigation may present very different circumstances from a routine investigative inquiry. Legislation should recognize those differences while preserving constitutional protections.
Accountability must include police and technology vendors
Much of the current controversy concerns Flock Safety, one of the companies providing ALPR technology.
But Pennsylvania’s public policy should not be written around the reputation, business model, or promises of any single vendor.
Police departments are accountable to the communities they serve, and the companies entrusted with sensitive law enforcement information should be subject to meaningful contractual, security, and statutory requirements.
That includes clear restrictions on commercial use of data, unauthorized disclosure, vendor access, and information sharing beyond the purposes approved by the responsible public agency.
Similarly, officers who improperly access ALPR information for personal reasons, harassment, retaliation, or other unauthorized purposes should face meaningful administrative and, where applicable, criminal consequences.
A badge does not provide an exemption from the law.
Professional law enforcement cannot ask the public to trust an investigative system while minimizing documented examples of misconduct.
The General Assembly has an important responsibility
Pennsylvania legislators have already recognized the need to address these issues.
House Bill 2771, which passed the House in October and awaits Senate consideration, reflects the effort to establish statewide rules governing automated license plate readers.
The debate over that legislation includes important questions about data retention, access thresholds, permissible investigative uses, information sharing, oversight, and the practical ability of law enforcement to respond to serious crimes.
These questions require careful consideration.
For example, a retention period that protects against unnecessary long-term surveillance must also account for the reality that criminal investigations do not always begin immediately. Victims may delay reporting crimes. Investigators may not identify a suspect vehicle until days after an incident.
Likewise, legal standards governing access must protect privacy without creating unnecessary barriers to responding to emergencies or developing lawful investigative leads.
These are not arguments against oversight. They are considerations that should inform how effective oversight is constructed.
The Association’s responsibility is to help lawmakers understand the operational consequences of proposed restrictions while recognizing the legitimate privacy interests at stake.
Public trust is the foundation of effective policing
The strongest law enforcement agencies recognize that their legitimacy depends upon the confidence of the communities they serve.
That confidence is earned through professionalism, transparency, restraint, and accountability.
Automated license plate readers do not change that obligation.
Pennsylvania’s police chiefs have a responsibility to employ lawful and effective investigative methods. They also have a responsibility to ensure those methods are not used to intimidate, improperly monitor, or infringe upon the rights of innocent people.
These principles can coexist.
The public deserves more than a debate framed as a choice between surveillance without limits and the elimination of a potentially valuable investigative tool.
It deserves thoughtful legislation, clear constitutional protections, responsible implementation, and measurable accountability.
The objective should not be to give government every technological capability available. Nor should it be to deny law enforcement every capability that carries a potential for abuse.
The objective should be to establish appropriate limits on government power while preserving the ability of professional police officers to protect the people and communities they have sworn to serve.
That is the balance professional law enforcement in Pennsylvania should seek.
And it is the standard by which the Commonwealth’s approach to automated license plate readers should be measured.
Scott Bohn is the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association. Patrick Molloy is the Chief of Police of Abington Township and serves as President of the Association. Together, they represent the leadership of an organization dedicated to professional policing, public safety, and the protection of constitutional rights throughout Pennsylvania.