Over 500 Licence Plate Scans In 4 Months? Virginia Man Sues City Over Excessive Surveillance

A retired veteran from Norfolk, Virginia, has filed a lawsuit against the city over police cameras that tracked him more than 500 times in just four months. The unusual case emerged earlier this week when Lee Schmidt discovered that license plate readers installed around Norfolk had scanned his vehicle nearly four times a day. This startling revelation was made public through a court filing, as reported by NBC News.

While the installation of license plate detecting cameras is increasingly common in US cities, Schmidt argues that such constant surveillance amounts to excessive monitoring and poses a serious risk to individual privacy. Shocked and concerned by the extent of the tracking, Schmidt teamed up with co-plaintiff Crystal Arrington to sue

the city with legal support from the Institute for Justice.

Arrington’s experience was even more intense, her car was recorded 849 times over less than five months, averaging about six scans daily, according to NBC News. The plaintiffs contend that the nearly continuous logging of their movements constitutes an unconstitutional search under the Fourth Amendment. Their lawsuit demands that the city shut down the cameras and delete the collected data.

Schmidt, motivated by curiosity about the scope of license plate tracking, was stunned to learn that his plate had been scanned 526 times between February 19 and July 2 by 176 cameras across Norfolk. Reflecting on the experience in an interview with NBC, he said, “It’s a crazy high number. It was shocking. The creepiness level just went straight up.”

The cameras in question are maintained and operated by Flock Safety, a company founded in 2017 that has rapidly expanded. Today, Flock Safety claims to operate “the largest public-private safety network” in the US. The company provides various surveillance technologies, including drones, audio gunshot detectors, and body-worn video cameras for police officers. Its subscription-based automatic license plate readers (ALPR) are widely used by police departments, businesses, and homeowners associations.

Court documents reveal that Norfolk signed a $2.2 million contract with Flock Safety to operate 176 ALPR cameras through 2027. So far, Norfolk’s system has been accessed approximately 200,000 times.

The lawsuit also highlights that Norfolk is one of over 5,000 police agencies nationwide now using Flock’s surveillance technology, raising broader questions about privacy and surveillance practices across the country.