On June 13, 2025, CalMatters broke the news that multiple law enforcement agencies in southern California had been ignoring state law and sharing data collected by ALPRs ^{(archive link)} with federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

CalMatters writes that, “state law enforcement agencies are barred from sharing license plate reader data with out-of-state public agencies or federal entities”, and continues, “The law has been routinely violated; civil liberties groups in 2023 found that 71 California law enforcement agencies had broken it.”

In this instance, ALPR search audit logs were reviewed by the anti-surveillance group Oakland Privacy, who identified over 100 cases in the prior month where officers from the Los Angeles Police Department as well as the San Diego County and Orange County sheriff’s departments had performed ALPR searches on behalf of federal agencies, including ICE.

The search reasons in the log included terms like, “HSI” (Homeland Security Investigations) and “CBP” (Customs and Border Patrol).

This is a completely predictable abuse of Flock, and it is a recurring and widespread pattern of behavior.

This abuse will not stop. These law enforcement agencies will continue sharing ALPR data with federal agencies, but they will be more careful not to use these particular search terms. Instead, they will use the same vague search terms that everyone else uses: “investigation”, “inv”, and “case”, among others.