ACLU of Wisconsin, Electronic Frontier Foundation File Lawsuit at Wisconsin Supreme Court, Allege Warrantless ALPR Surveillance Violates Constitution

MADISON – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today filed a petition directly with the Wisconsin Supreme Court on behalf of the Wisconsin Council of Churches (WCC) and an individual pastor in Green Bay asking the Court to require the government to obtain a judicial warrant in order to query data collected by Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) networks. The lawsuit asserts that retroactive searches of this kind of ALPR data amounts to a “search” that must comply with standards mandated by the Wisconsin Constitution.

The Petitioners are suing four Wisconsin cities – Green Bay, Milwaukee, Racine, and Kenosha – each of which operate these systems and conduct searches using them. The WCC represents more than 2,000 congregations in Wisconsin who provide religious services, confidential counseling, and other sensitive community programming, including in these jurisdictions. Petitioners allege that the government’s ability to retroactively search these vast, AI-assisted networks of ALPRs tramples upon Wisconsinites’ expectations of privacy and amounts to a “search” that can only be legal if performed with a warrant or a lawful exception to the warrant requirements.

ALPRs are high-speed, computer-controlled camera systems that are typically mounted inconspicuously on street poles, streetlights, highway overpasses, mobile trailers, or attached to police squad cars. ALPRs photograph every license plate, along with identifying characteristics of the vehicle like a bumper sticker, and sometimes the driver and passengers. ALPR software platforms then stamp the images with a date and time for easy searchability, and upload it to a central server where it may be shared with law enforcement agencies across the country.

ALPR technology scans and stores vehicle data from countless drivers every day, enabling the government to track where people drive and when — without their knowledge or consent and without a warrant. These devices collect everyone’s data, not just data on vehicles allegedly associated with a crime.

The United States Supreme Court has held that the use of other similar technologies that result in pervasive tracking over time invade a reasonable expectation of privacy, converting otherwise public observations into a comprehensive data set that, when searched retroactively, amounts to an unconstitutional search.

Wisconsin’s State Constitution provides protection from unreasonable searches and therefore guards against this exact form of indiscriminate electronic dragnet. Accordingly, law enforcement’s retrospective querying of these kinds of ALPR databases without any constitutional safeguards amounts to an illegal search.

“Thousands of automatic license plate readers stationed across Wisconsin have created a mass surveillance machine constantly tracking, logging, and sharing information about us without a warrant,” said Wes Haslam, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Wisconsin. “These systems allow the government an intimate glimpse into our personal lives – where we live, work, spend our free time, attend school, and practice faith, whether we’ve been to an abortion clinic, a protest, a political event, or a gun store. And — as we’ve now seen far too many times — it can also be weaponized by rogue officers for personal reasons without judicial oversight.”

“The members of the Wisconsin Council of Churches – numbering more than 2000 congregations and over a million individuals – have a reasonable expectation of privacy in how they practice their religious beliefs and in many of the services they seek at our member churches,” said Dr. Kerri Parker, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches. “Some of these services are specifically intended to be anonymous, like those serving people recovering from addiction, seeking services related to domestic violence, disclosing sensitive matters in confession, and sanctuary. We have a right to demand that the government’s surveillance programs are not used to undermine the confidentiality that is core to our work.”

“ALPR mass surveillance has given the government the power to effortlessly scrutinize our movements in a way that just was not possible before,” said Andrew Crocker, Surveillance Litigation Director at EFF. “These cameras are tirelessly tracking us as we drive, and every day that this power goes unchecked is another day that the people of Wisconsin have their reasonable expectations of privacy violated.”

“Individual municipalities can and should end contracts with ALPR companies and strengthen transparency, accountability and oversight of all surveillance technology,” Haslam added. “But until that happens, this is clearly a statewide problem that demands a statewide response. Judicial warrant requirements provide powerful protections against unchecked government surveillance and abuse in other circumstances, and the same constitutional scrutiny should certainly apply to these ALPR networks.”