Cybersecurity Policy Report, House Bill Would Ban Federal Funds for License Plate Readers, ‘Mass Surveillance’, (Oct 15, 2026)
Federal agencies would be barred from using automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) or other “automated mass surveillance systems” under legislation introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) and six Democratic co-sponsors.
The Get the Flock Out of Our Communities Act (H.R. 10807, 119th Cong. (2026)), which is named after Flock Safety, a leading ALPR vendor, “is the only bill in Congress designed to completely prohibit the use of automated mass surveillance technology, including biometric surveillance systems and facial recognition technology,” Rep. Tlaib said yesterday in a news release.
The bill would prohibit the use of federal funds to operate ALPRs, biometric surveillance systems, or facial recognition technology, according to its text.
States that have purchased mass surveillance systems with federal funds would have to decommission those systems within 30 days of the bill’s enactment and delete the data the systems collected, the bill says.
“The mass surveillance crisis is not a dystopian fantasy—it is already here. Our children and neighbors cannot go to the park, drive down the street, go to work, or exercise their Constitutional rights without their privacy being breached,” Rep. Tlaib said.
“Flock’s technology isn’t making us safer. Instead it has been used to stalk people, misidentify and arrest innocent people, surveil protestors, and wrongfully record our neighbors. My bill would prevent our government on all levels from selling us out to Big Tech companies that trample our civil rights for profit,” she added.
Rep. Tlaib’s bill is one of several introduced recently in the House and Senate by Democrats and Republicans to address the privacy impacts of ALPRs. At a recent Senate hearing chaired by Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), witnesses suggested that probable-cause warrants should be required for searches of ALPR data (CPR, Sept. 24).
On its website, Flock Safety asserts that its ALPRs don’t conduct mass surveillance or collect biometric data.
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