An investigation by CT Insider found thousands of instances where out-of-state police departments and other law enforcement authorities searched data collected from these cameras in Connecticut. Those searches, in many cases, were labeled "ICE" or "ICE-assist," raising questions about compliance with Connecticut law meant to restrict cooperation with federal authorities, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In response to the reporting from CT Insider, several key lawmakers said those searches violate the spirit, if not the letter, of a state law that limits how police in Connecticut can cooperate with federal immigration officials. The reporting prompted state Attorney General William Tong to say he plans to investigate the database searches. Some lawmakers said they plan to raise the issue during the legislative session as a priority.
"It's a betrayal of the expectations of the people of Connecticut and the police departments (here) that have utilized those services," state Rep. Matt Blumenthal, D-Stamford, said in an interview.
Local law enforcement agencies often place these cameras — called automated license plate readers, or ALPRs — on standing poles in public places. The cameras record the cars that go by, logging its license plate into a database. Some, like those sold by the Atlanta-based technology company Flock, can be set to share that data with a national network that any agency on the network can search. A company spokesperson recently noted that the national network function is not currently the default setting, and Flock emphasized it is for participating local departments to choose whether to allow searches of their license plate camera data or not with outside departments or agencies.
Interest in regulating license plate cameras comes amid a growing wave of concern from lawmakers and privacy and immigration advocates about whether the data the cameras collect is being used for purposes like enforcing federal immigration laws and state abortion bans.
"I think it would be a violation of the Trust Act for a police department to turn over license plate data to ICE for the purposes of immigration enforcement," state Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, who co-chairs the legislature's Judiciary Committee added.
The Trust Act, originally passed in 2013 and updated in 2019 and 2025, places strict limits on how Connecticut law enforcement agencies from cooperating with federal immigration authorities — including what kind of personally identifying data they can share.
Police in Connecticut have credited the cameras with helping to find missing vehicles, catch people with arrest warrants and solve violent crimes. But the lack of regulation that exists has led state lawmakers to say it may be time to reign in the use of the devices by placing limits on how long state and local law enforcement agencies can retain the data. Lawmakers said they will also consider limiting how police can share that data or perhaps require them to receive approval before they use an ALPR.
"I think it's something that our committees of cognizance, both the Public Safety Committee and the Judiciary Committee, should take a look at, and perhaps raise a bill to have a hearing on, and to get comment on what kinds of regulations we might look to adopt to prevent abuses," said Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven.
Putting guardrails around license-plate cameras is a priority for the Judiciary Committee during the legislative session, which begins on Feb. 4 and runs through May 6, according to Rep. Josh Elliott, D-Hamden, a committee member and gubernatorial candidate.
"It's an issue, not just of surveillance, but of mass surveillance across state lines," Elliott said, adding that lawmakers "want to make sure there are some reasonable limits."
State Sen. Kissel, R-Enfield, ranking member on the legislature's judiciary committee, said when license plate readers were installed in his town, it was done without full knowledge of local officials. Concerns from residents followed.
"I don't like the notion of Big Brother spying on everybody," he said. "I would love to have any kind of bill proposal on that so that we could have a public hearing and learn more."
State officials have not maintained a centralized list of which towns have license plate cameras and the number of cameras can vary by town. Some police departments have declined in previous interviews to provide specific locations of the cameras. In the case of Flock, departments can choose not to enable the national network that shares collected data across the country.
"Any agency in any state is able to use the block system in compliance with their local laws," the spokesperson said in a recent interview. "Agencies don't have to share out of state at all if they don't want to."
The Government Administration and Elections Committee could also put forward a bill that would bar state government entities and municipalities from making contracts ALPR companies unless "strong privacy protections" are in place, according to Blumenthal, the committee's co-chair.
Blumenthal is one of the attorneys representing a Meriden teen who was released last month after six months in ICE custody in Texas. He is especially concerned about data sharing after federal immigration authorities shot and killed two people as people were protesting ICE's actions in separate incidents in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Senior federal officials made statements in the wake of those shootings that seemed to contradict video evidence.
"We need to be very careful about what information and evidence we share with the federal government, because it could be misused," Blumenthal said.
"I think that that is something that we need to discuss, debate. And we have to put major parameters around that," added state Sen. Majority Leader, Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, when asked about out-of-state agencies searching for data collected in Connecticut.
Expanding camera use
This isn't the first time Connecticut lawmakers have considered regulations on these devices.
The General Assembly considered a bill in 2012 that would have authorized towns' use of standing license plate readers, and limited the amount of time a police department in the state could retain license-plate images. At the time, these cameras were largely affixed to police cars.
Two legislative committees overwhelmingly approved the measure and sent it to the House floor where it was never called for a vote.
The use of ALPRs has ballooned since then. There's no official tally of how many towns and cities in Connecticut use the technology, but Chelsea-Inifinity Gonzalez with the ACLU of Connecticut believes they are more widespread than either residents or legislators think.
"There are just so many ALPR cameras in Connecticut," she said, adding that the national database creates concern.
"The public often has no idea how interconnected these systems really are," Gonzalez said. "I also don't think that some of these law enforcement agencies truly understand."
Multiple police departments interviewed by CT Insider in recent weeks said they turned the national database function off.
Some towns and cities have been implementing speed and red light cameras, which capture an image of the license plate of cars pass by. If a driver is traveling too fast or crosses an intersection during a red light, they would be issued a fine. Installing the cameras requires approval from the state, in addition to a local approvals process, unlike ALPRs, which in many cases have not been vetted beyond the police department.
"That kind of really deliberate rollout shows exactly what responsible use of technology looks like," Gonzalez said. "It's transparent. It's accountable."
Rep. Doug Dubitsky, R-North Windham, an attorney by trade, said automated license-plate readers differ from red-light and speed cameras because there is a presumption of guilt. ALPRs don't just take pictures of license plates — they allow law enforcement to track any car across borders without due process.
"The purpose of this is not just to take pictures of license plates," Dubitsky said. "It's to track people. It's to take pictures of license plates wherever you go. It's to make sure that the government knows exactly where you are at any given time."
Police departments do often require a written justification for the use of ALPR technology, but data from ALPR cameras in Connecticut obtained by CT Insider show those justifications can be as simple as "training," "suspicious vehicle" or "immigration," without any supporting documentation.
That worries Dubitsky, who said the cameras "just collect all this data without any judge ever looking at it, and without ever having to make a case that anybody's done anything wrong."
Connecticut wouldn't be the first state to regulate the use of ALPRs. Maryland and some other states specify protocols law-enforcement agencies must follow when they use the devices. In New Hampshire, which has some of the nation's strictest ALPR laws, departments must delete all photos within three minutes unless the search resulted in an arrest or the vehicle was the subject of a missing or wanted-person broadcast.
© 2026 The Middletown Press, Conn. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
