The rapid growth of automated license plate readers in Iowa is sparking calls for broader state regulations of the technology, with civil liberties advocates pointing to a new report claiming the technology infringes on privacy rights.
The ACLU of Iowa and the University of Iowa College of Law’s Technology Law Clinic released a report Wednesday, Dec. 10, sounding the alarm on law enforcement agencies’ growing use of ALPRs, the traffic cameras used along Iowa roadways that capture the license plates of passing vehicles.
The report looks at the use of this technology by 48 law enforcement agencies across Iowa, offering a snapshot of how a broad cross-section of Iowa communities deploy the devices and use the data they capture.
UI associate clinical professor Megan Graham, the director of the Technology Law Clinic who supervised the project, said the wide use of license-plate cameras in Iowa creates a “substantial network” of surveillance across the state.
The report highlights inconsistencies in the use and regulation of license-plate camera data in Iowa, including how it is kept and deleted, what information is publicly available and who can access the data and run searches.
“Because of the policy differences, the policy shifts and change(s) as Iowans drive from place to place around the state,” Graham said.
Information can be fed into a network of nationally shared databases that the ACLU says has few privacy protections and is subject to abuse.
ACLU of Iowa policy director Pete McRoberts recommended Iowa communities immediately pause their contracts with license-plate camera vendors since Iowa lacks a comprehensive law that constrains their use and regulates the data collected on people.
ACLU of Iowa legal director Rita Bettis Austen said Iowans may need broader protections as license-plate cameras may impinge on several federal rights, including the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.
There is no Iowa law limiting law enforcement to legitimate uses in deploying the cameras or requiring that Iowans are told when the devices are installed and active in a given location.
“They want to watch us,” Bettis Austen said. “They want to be able to do so in secrecy, and this is fundamentally at odds with our democracy.” What are Automated License Plate Readers?
The high-speed cameras used to capture license plates and color, make and model of every vehicle that come into view typically are freestanding but also can be mounted on objects such as road signs or police vehicles.
These are not to the same as automated traffic enforcement cameras that are triggered by a violation, such as speeding. License-plate cameras take images of all vehicles that pass, regardless of whether a motorist has done anything wrong.
The information license-plate cameras capture — including the plate and date, time and location — is gathered into a database accessible to government agencies. Law enforcement may access that information to check if vehicles are stolen, connected to any missing-person alerts or tied to someone who has a warrant for their arrest. Technology is growing in Iowa
ACLU officials contend local governments across Iowa are signing away Iowans’ right to privacy as these devices are increasingly used for purposes beyond stopping crimes without more comprehensive regulations.
More than 35 Iowa communities use ALPRs, including Des Moines metro suburbs, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo and Dubuque. Central Iowa communities that deploy the cameras include Altoona, Ankeny, Carlisle, Indianola, Johnston, Norwalk, Pleasant Hill, Polk City, Urbandale, Waukee and West Des Moines.
Most have contracted with an Atlanta-based company called Flock Safety to use ALPR cameras. Twenty-seven of the 43 agencies that responded to the survey had contracts with Flock for agreements spanning one to five years.
Cedar Rapids operates the most cameras — 76 total — and has the highest single contract total of $499,250 for a two-year contract ending in July 2026. The report found the average contract is for about $4,404 per month.
Average costs vary for the other two vendors less commonly used by the surveyed Iowa communities, Axon and Motorola Solutions.
The study also identified 62 Iowa communities that have accessed other Iowa cities’ or counties’ ALPR databases, whether they have their own ALPRs or not.
Some cities, like Iowa City, only use ALPRs for traffic and parking enforcement. And some agencies limit which staff within their law enforcement agency may access data collected by the cameras.
Representatives for Flock did not immediately provide a comment in reaction to the report.
But in responding to similar report in Washington state, Flock issued a statement in October saying it is “is committed to helping communities improve public safety while remaining in compliance with their local laws, agency technology policies, and according to their community’s values.” Report flags concerns with broad surveillance powers, ALPR errors
Flock’s national network is at the center of concerns over federal surveillance powers. The database allows local law enforcement or federal agencies to access other states’ data for up to 30 days to solve cases faster, the company says.
There have been reported examples of the technology being used by local authorities to assist in immigration enforcement efforts as President Donald Trump’s administration’s illegal immigration crackdown intensifies. The study didn’t find similar incidents in Iowa.
It also highlighted issues nationwide in which law enforcement officials held drivers at gunpoint, treating the encounter as a felony stop after license-plate cameras erroneously identified vehicles as stolen.
The report found some Iowa communities’ contracts contained broad language that allows Flock to share the data “worldwide” and has a loosely defined “purpose.”
The ACLU’s McRoberts said that while a municipality’s policy may be protective internally by limiting which personnel can access data, license-plate camera vendor agreements are “largely one-sided contracts.” He said municipalities “have no power over their data once it leaves a jurisdiction.”
Ultimately, McRoberts said local governments should outline their terms when solicited by vendors and propose to the company that data will not be shared outside the jurisdiction or the state without a warrant.
“The cities, one after the other, they fell like dominoes to these companies and they uniformly refused to assert their own power or to show the company that it takes two to tango,” McRoberts said.
Five of the 48 selected agencies did not respond to the substance of ACLU’s records request before the report was published, including the Des Moines Police Department, as well as police departments in Clinton, Fayette, Fremont and Mills. Graham said DMPD has identified responsive records but had not shared them yet.
Flock has previously said that customers have “complete control over their sharing relationships,” and the company doesn’t share their data without their permission. The company says agencies that contract with Flock may choose to collaborate with federal agencies but are never enrolled in automatic data sharing. ACLU of Iowa recommends cities pause license-plate camera use until the state regulates them
Iowa is not among the 22 states that have passed statutes to shield residents from license-plate camera use, though ACLU officials hoped that could change after the report’s release.
“Iowans have less rights than some of our neighbors in the Midwest when it comes to ALPRs,” the report states.
The report outlines the varied ways in which other Midwestern states, including Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota and Nebraska, have structured their laws regulating ALPRs.
Illinois’ law is one of the more restrictive, barring the sharing of data for investigations related to lawful reproductive health care or a person’s immigration status. It also prohibits sharing data with out-of-state agencies without a written assurance of compliance with the Illinois law and requires that all ALPR information stay confidential.
Kansas’ statute is looser, pertaining more to the state’s public records law. It directs records requesters to send requests for ALPR information to the agency with the ALPR system, and it says that agencies do not have to share records that contain “captured license plate data” or would reveal the locations of ALPR cameras.
“Our view is that all of these contracts really do need to be put on hold while the Legislature concludes what they’ll do for either what we hope is a comprehensive fix on privacy so that if these things are used, they are used for appropriate reasons that protect people’s privacy,” McRoberts said.
Flock has said it is “unaware of any credible case of Flock technology being used to prosecute a woman for reproductive health care or anyone for gender affirming health care.”
It said it has introduced keyword filters to block those searches in areas where those uses are prohibited for license-plate cameras.