"Every person in Connecticut should be able to drive to work, school, or the doctor without ending up in a government database," said David McGuire, executive director of the ACLU of Connecticut.
License plate scanners, often affixed to stationary poles, have been popping up in numerous communities across Connecticut in recent years. Managed by the local police departments, many police officials have said they have helped to solve crimes and cases of missing people by tracking every license plate that drive past. But others have argued the scanners are an invasion of privacy and that the information could wind up in the wrong hands.
The ACLU said a moratorium is needed until new laws prevent "misuse, sharing, and selling of driver location data," noting the information can now be used against "immigrants, LGBTQ+ people and anyone seeking reproductive or gender affirming care."
McGuire said the data represents a real threat to state residents.
"When our state's location data is being accessed by ICE and states that criminalize abortion or gender-affirming care, that surveillance becomes a direct threat to people's safety and freedom," McGuire said. "This kind of unchecked monitoring has a chilling effect on people exercising their rights — whether visiting a health clinic, attending a protest, or going to worship. Until we have transparency and meaningful safeguards, Connecticut must halt the use of these systems."
Rob Blanchard, spokesman for Gov. Ned Lamont, said the governor is open to suggestions regarding additional protections.
"The Governor is committed to ensuring that data is not used unlawfully or in violation of Connecticut's Trust Act," Blanchard said. "In addition to including strong privacy protections in the call for this week's special session, his administration has met with advocates to better understand the scope of this issue and remains open to exploring additional safeguards."
Democratic majority leaders in the General Assembly did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Connecticut Trust Act, updated earlier this year, prohibits law enforcement from cooperating with immigration and deportation enforcement conducted by ICE or other agencies, except in the case of a serious felony charge. In general, the law prevents the state from being drawn into the current immigration and enforcement activities. That said, data from a company collecting the information could be sent elsewhere, theoretically.
Concern has been growing for some time over companies such as Flock Safety, which operates cameras across Connecticut and the U.S., providing data to ICE, the federal Department of Homeland Security and other authorities.
In response to complaints, Flock in August said a pilot program in which the company agreed to assist "those agencies in combating human trafficking and fentanyl distribution" has been put on hold.
But whether that "hold" remains in place, or if Connecticut data was sent to DHS under the pilot program, remains unknown. A request to Flock Safety for comment and clarification did not receive an immediate response.
In a more recent, Nov. 4 statement, Flock said it will not sell, publish or disclose reader data for commercial purposes, disclose or publish the data unless required by law or disseminate information to anyone not authorized to access or use the data.
But the statement left open the possibility of delivering data to federal government agencies or other authorities.
"Flock Safety may access, use, preserve and/or disclose the LPR [License plate reader] data to law enforcement authorities, government officials, and/or third parties, if legally required to do so or if Flock has a good faith belief that such access, use, preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with a legal process, enforce the agreement between Flock and the customer, or detect, prevent or otherwise address security, privacy, fraud or technical issues, or emergency situations," the statement noted.
Earlier this year, a Texas sheriff's department used Flock's "national lookup" feature to search for a woman who was seeking an abortion. That search reportedly pulled data from more than 83,000 cameras in many states.
In July, an employee at the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reportedly used Flock's software to search data from Richmond, Va., for purposes of immigration enforcement.
Rules of the road
Although no one knows how many license plate reader cameras are in Connecticut — state law does not require their usage be reported — it's generally accepted the number is steadily growing.
The Connecticut State Police are known to operate at least 14 cameras attached to cruisers and one stationary reader and as of May 2025 the department had 30 more on order. Towns including Milford, Clinton, Cheshire, Greewnich, East Haven, Darien, Vernon and Manchester were among communities known to have the cameras.
The Putnam Police Department's web page notes its Flock cameras are intended to "capture objective evidence without compromising on individual privacy" and the town is prohibited from using the data for "immigration enforcement, traffic enforcement, harassment or intimidation, usage based solely on a protected class (i.e. race, sex, religion) and personal use."
The website also offers a lengthy use of organizations granted access to town cameras, including the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Wright Patterson Ohio Air Force Base. Towns and cities given access range from the Agawam, Massachusetts Police Department to the Sherwood, Arizona Police Department.
Investigation and privacy
ACLU said it has filed 43 requests to 42 municipal police departments and the state police in Connecticut known to use Flock systems, as well as 51 additional requests to other municipal departments for general information about their use of license plate readers and related contracts.
The effort builds on findings by the national ACLU and partner organizations which shows Flock's standard contract grants the company a "worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free" license to share police-collected data "for investigative purposes." The ACLU said that means information collected by a local department could be accessed by thousands of agencies nationwide unless specific contractual limits are negotiated.
"From Black and brown communities to those seeking reproductive health and gender-affirming care, ALPR technology like Flock Safety disproportionately harms people already facing systemic discrimination, while putting everyone's data, safety, and autonomy at risk," said Chelsea-Infinity Gonzalez, Director of Public Policy and Advocacy of the ACLU of Connecticut.
"The public deserves to know how this surveillance technology is being used before another day of unregulated tracking occurs," Gonzalez said. "We are calling for an immediate moratorium on the use of this technology in Connecticut until the legislature and governor establish strict limits to prevent this data from being shared, sold, or weaponized against vulnerable communities. Every person in Connecticut deserves to move freely without being tracked, profiled, or exposed to government overreach."
Eric Cruz Lopez, Organizing Director of CT Students for a Dream, said "immigrants and citizens alike should not have to fear that their personal information will fall into the wrong hands, simply by driving their cars."
Lopez added "in a time where all our data is mined by private companies, we do not need our state to have public-private partnerships that sell our data to the federal government and to states that are prosecuting their residents for pursuing care."
Constanza Segovia, Organizing Director of Hartford Deportation Defense, said everyone should be concerned about privacy.
"Our municipal agencies, including police departments, must work for everybody who lives here regardless of immigration status," Segovia said. "When we sell our neighbors' personal information to unscrupulous third parties without public input or regulation, we put all of our people at risk. This practice must stop."
© 2025 Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Conn. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
