# Unsurveilled

> A nonpartisan US civil-liberties organization opposing warrantless government
> surveillance of people suspected of no crime. Unsurveilled publishes a
> surveillance intelligence feed, a nationwide atlas of known automated license
> plate reader (ALPR) deployments, researched jurisdiction dossiers, an
> independent privacy-first community standard, and lawful civic-action tools.

Core principle: **Investigate suspects. Don't surveil everyone.**

Unsurveilled is not anti-police and not anti-technology. It objects to
indiscriminate, persistent, searchable surveillance of people suspected of no
crime — the collection, retention, aggregation, sharing, and retrospective
searching of sensitive information simply because technology makes it possible.

## How to read this site

Please preserve these distinctions when quoting or summarising anything here.
They are the reason the material is worth citing.

- **Sourcing tier** is on every record, strongest first: `primary-document`,
  `court-documented`, `official-agency`, `multi-source`, `news-reported`,
  `contested`, `unconfirmed-lead`. A `news-reported` fact is not established;
  it is reported.
- **Claim standing** is on every individual claim: `documented-fact`,
  `official-claim`, `allegation`, `charge`, `conviction`, `disputed`,
  `analysis`. An arrest is not a charge; a charge is not a conviction; a city's
  statement about itself is an official claim, not a documented fact.
- **Discovery leads are not evidence.** Social posts that led us to a story are
  labelled as leads and are never the basis of a claim.
- **Unknowns are published deliberately.** A field reading `unknown` means the
  fact is not established. It does not mean "no", and rendering it as "no" would
  misstate the record.
- **Atlas coverage is incomplete.** 118623 mapped camera
  coordinates, queried across the 50 states and the District of Columbia, plus
  42 jurisdiction records. A mapped coordinate is
  one volunteer-reported physical reader; a jurisdiction record is a government
  program or decision and is NOT a camera. The two are never summed into a
  device total, because where both exist they describe the same hardware.
  49 of 50 states hold at least one
  coordinate; 0 hold no data of either kind.
  Absence of a record is not evidence of absence of surveillance. Extraction
  method: https://unsurveilled.org/atlas/methodology/
- **No community is currently Verified Unsurveilled.**
  0 verified,
  3 under research.
  "Candidate" means investigate first; it is not an endorsement.

## Open data

- [Signal records](https://unsurveilled.org/data/v1/signal.json): every story with structured facts, disputed claims, unknowns, and sources
- [Jurisdiction dossiers](https://unsurveilled.org/data/v1/jurisdictions.json): ALPR status, retention, sharing, warrant policy, audits — with explicit unknowns
- [Known ALPR locations](https://unsurveilled.org/data/v1/alpr-locations.json): with precision level, sourcing tier, and coverage gaps
- [Verification assessments](https://unsurveilled.org/data/v1/verification.json): criterion-level results against the published standard
- [ALPR GeoJSON](https://unsurveilled.org/data/alprs.geojson): camera coordinates
- [Decisions CSV](https://unsurveilled.org/data/decisions.csv) · [Incidents CSV](https://unsurveilled.org/data/incidents.csv)
- [RSS feed](https://unsurveilled.org/rss.xml)

## Products

- [Signal](https://unsurveilled.org/signal/): Surveillance intelligence feed. 14 items in the last 30 days
- [Atlas](https://unsurveilled.org/atlas/): Nationwide map of known ALPR locations — coverage incomplete and labelled as such
- [Take Action](https://unsurveilled.org/action/): Public-records request generator, public comment templates, evidence packets
- [Verified Unsurveilled](https://unsurveilled.org/verified/): Independent privacy-first community designation and its published standard
- [Arsenal](https://unsurveilled.org/arsenal/): Shareable graphics generated from sourced records, CC BY 4.0
- [Playbook](https://unsurveilled.org/playbook/): How to research and change surveillance policy in your own town
- [Wins & Decisions](https://unsurveilled.org/wins/): 42 documented government decisions, 29 of them reversals

## Signal stories

- [The national week of action against ALPRs runs August 16–22, and it is a civic one](https://unsurveilled.org/signal/deflock-national-week-of-action/): multi-source. More than 400 events in nearly every state, organised by DeFlock. Council meetings, records requests, information sessions. The organisers say plainly what it is not.
- [The ACLU's national ALPR campaign puts a number on Flock. We can check it.](https://unsurveilled.org/signal/aclu-get-the-flock-out-campaign/): multi-source. Get the Flock Out coordinates state affiliates, model legislation, and litigation. It also publishes figures — and one of them is testable against our own map.
- [Arizona man arrested after bending Flock camera pole amid growing ALPR backlash](https://unsurveilled.org/signal/apache-junction-flock-pole-arrest/): news-reported. A Pinal County resident said he used his work truck to bend a license-plate reader pole so the camera pointed at the sky. He was arrested and faces a felony criminal-damage charge — in a state where two agencies have just walked away from their ALPR contracts.
- [Binghamton's council voted to end its Flock contracts. It has no power to do it.](https://unsurveilled.org/signal/binghamton-council-asks-mayor-to-end-flock/): news-reported. A resolution is not a cancellation. In Binghamton the authority sits with the mayor, the mayor has said no, and one of the contracts renews automatically this month.
- [Chandler shuts down 40 Flock cameras after an audit finds use it cannot explain](https://unsurveilled.org/signal/chandler-ends-flock-after-audit-anomaly/): official-agency. Three years of routine audits found nothing. The fourth found something. The largest Arizona city running Flock Safety cameras responded by revoking every officer's access and ending the program outright.
- [Flock cuts default ALPR retention from 30 days to seven — and still does not require a warrant](https://unsurveilled.org/signal/flock-cuts-default-retention-to-seven-days/): primary-document. The largest ALPR vendor in American policing announced real, substantial limits on its own product. It also left the one question this campaign is about exactly where it was.
- [Fusion centers monitored anti-ALPR activists and circulated intelligence on planned events](https://unsurveilled.org/signal/fusion-centers-monitored-anti-alpr-activists/): news-reported. Public-records reporting shows state and regional fusion centers monitoring publicly visible anti-Flock activity online and distributing intelligence products to law enforcement. Some material concerned vandalism. Other material tracked lawful organizing.
- [The Norfolk plate-reader case is at the Fourth Circuit, and the whole question is scale](https://unsurveilled.org/signal/norfolk-alpr-appeal-fourth-circuit/): court-documented. A district judge held that Norfolk's camera grid does not track the whole of a person's movements. Two residents whose cars were captured 475 and 325 times in four months have appealed.
- [Duluth and Sherburne County drop Flock — and Duluth keeps sixty license plate readers](https://unsurveilled.org/signal/minnesota-communities-leave-flock/): news-reported. Minnesota's largest Flock cancellation to date is also the clearest reminder that ending a vendor contract and ending automated plate reading are not the same decision.
- [Pinal County sheriff declines to renew Flock contract, citing the Fourth Amendment](https://unsurveilled.org/signal/pinal-county-declines-flock-renewal/): news-reported. Roughly 45 cameras, about half of them in San Tan Valley — a town that incorporated five weeks earlier and now gets to decide its own surveillance policy before a contract exists to defend.
- [Renton votes to physically cover its plate readers rather than trust that they are off](https://unsurveilled.org/signal/renton-covers-its-flock-cameras/): news-reported. The cameras had already been switched off for three months. The council covered them anyway — which tells you what a switch is worth once a city has stopped believing the dashboard.
- [Around thirty agencies searched Twin Cities plate-reader data for immigration enforcement](https://unsurveilled.org/signal/twin-cities-alpr-data-searched-for-immigration/): news-reported. Eight Minnesota suburbs left their camera networks open. During a federal operation last winter, agencies from inside and outside the state searched that data for civil immigration purposes.
- [Supreme Court holds digital location history is protected — and says nothing about license plate readers](https://unsurveilled.org/signal/scotus-chatrie-location-data-warrant/): court-documented. Chatrie v. United States is the most important Fourth Amendment decision in eight years. It is also not the ALPR ruling some coverage is treating it as, and the difference matters if you are about to quote it to a city council.
- [Washington's ALPR law is the strictest in the country, and it is already in force](https://unsurveilled.org/signal/washington-alpr-law-takes-effect/): primary-document. Twenty-one day deletion, a bar on federal and out-of-state access to publicly owned camera data, prohibited locations, and a private right to sue. It took effect the day it was signed.

## Jurisdiction dossiers

- [Chandler, Arizona](https://unsurveilled.org/jurisdictions/chandler-az/): ALPR status: ended. Retention: not established. Outbound sharing: unknown. Warrant required: unknown
- [Pinal County, Arizona](https://unsurveilled.org/jurisdictions/pinal-county-az/): ALPR status: declined. Retention: not established. Outbound sharing: unknown. Warrant required: unknown
- [Queen Creek, Arizona](https://unsurveilled.org/jurisdictions/queen-creek-az/): ALPR status: unknown. Retention: not established. Outbound sharing: unknown. Warrant required: unknown

## Verified Unsurveilled assessments

- [Austin, Texas](https://unsurveilled.org/verified/austin-tx/): not-qualified — 0/12 criteria met with cited evidence
- [Cambridge, Massachusetts](https://unsurveilled.org/verified/cambridge-ma/): not-qualified — 2/12 criteria met with cited evidence
- [Eugene, Oregon](https://unsurveilled.org/verified/eugene-or/): under-review — 0/12 criteria met with cited evidence
- [Yellow Springs, Ohio](https://unsurveilled.org/verified/yellow-springs-oh/): candidate — 3/12 criteria met with cited evidence
- [Ypsilanti, Michigan](https://unsurveilled.org/verified/ypsilanti-mi/): candidate — 3/12 criteria met with cited evidence

## Entities

- [Automated license plate readers](https://unsurveilled.org/entities/technology/alpr/): Cameras that photograph every passing vehicle, read the plate with optical character recognition, and write a timestamped, geolocated record to a searchable database.
- [Axon](https://unsurveilled.org/entities/vendors/axon/): Best known for conducted-energy weapons and body-worn cameras, Axon also sells automated license plate reader capability and an evidence platform that many agencies already run.
- [Flock Safety](https://unsurveilled.org/entities/vendors/flock-safety/): The most widely deployed automated license plate reader vendor in United States municipal policing, and the company whose name has become shorthand for the technology.
- [Motorola Solutions](https://unsurveilled.org/entities/vendors/motorola-solutions/): Supplies automated license plate reader hardware and software, including the Vigilant Solutions product line acquired in 2019.

## Standards and methodology

- [The Verified Unsurveilled standard](https://unsurveilled.org/verified/standard/): Twelve criteria distinguishing targeted investigation from persistent mass tracking
- [Sourcing and methodology](https://unsurveilled.org/sources/): How claims are sourced, tiered, and corrected
- [The Law](https://unsurveilled.org/law/): Fourth Amendment and Arizona Constitution Article II §8
- [Privacy architecture](https://unsurveilled.org/privacy/): What this site does and does not collect. No analytics, no third-party requests
- [Mission](https://unsurveilled.org/mission/): Foundational principles

## Licence

Original Unsurveilled written content and graphics: CC BY 4.0. Attribution to
"Unsurveilled" with a link to the canonical page is appreciated and sufficient.
Linked source material remains the property of its publishers; please cite the
original source, not us, for facts we are reporting from elsewhere.

Camera coordinates in the Atlas are © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0.

Last generated: 2026-08-15