Petition to the Governor of Indiana, the Indiana General Assembly, County Commissioners, City Councils, and All Relevant Local Governments
Title: Petition for the Immediate Removal and Permanent Prohibition of All Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) Cameras, Including Flock Safety and Axon Systems, Throughout the State of Indiana
We, the undersigned residents and concerned citizens of the State of Indiana, respectfully petition our elected officials at every level of government to take the following actions without delay:
Immediately terminate all existing contracts with Flock Safety, Axon, Vigilant Solutions, and any other vendors providing automated license plate reader (ALPR) systems, fixed or mobile cameras capable of reading and recording license plates, vehicle characteristics, location, and time data.
Order the complete physical removal of all such cameras and related equipment from public roads, intersections, rights-of-way, private property under public contract or partnership, and any other locations within Indiana.
Enact statewide legislation permanently prohibiting the installation, operation, purchase, lease, or data-sharing of any automated license plate reader systems or substantially similar mass vehicle-tracking technology by any Indiana state agency, county, city, town, township, school corporation, university, or other public entity.
Require the deletion of all historical ALPR data collected within Indiana and prohibit any further access, retention, or sharing of such data.
Prohibit participation in any national or multi-state ALPR data networks that allow out-of-state or federal agencies to query Indiana-collected vehicle movement data.
Statement of Grounds
Indiana currently hosts one of the densest networks of ALPR cameras in the United States. Crowdsourced mapping and agency transparency data document more than 3,500 ALPR cameras across the vast majority of Indiana’s 92 counties, with the large majority manufactured by Flock Safety. These systems photograph every passing vehicle, log license plate numbers, vehicle attributes, precise location, and timestamp into searchable databases. Agency-reported detection rates indicate the documented network alone scans on the order of millions of plates per day.
This constitutes continuous, warrantless mass surveillance of the movements of law-abiding residents. License plate data reveals sensitive personal information—where people live, work, worship, seek medical care, attend political events, or exercise other constitutionally protected activities. When aggregated over time and combined with other data sources, it enables detailed tracking of individuals’ patterns of life without individualized suspicion or judicial oversight.
Indiana currently has no statewide statute regulating the retention, access, auditing, or sharing of ALPR data. Local policies vary widely or are nonexistent. Data is frequently accessible through multi-agency networks, creating risks of misuse, including personal tracking by officers, political or viewpoint-based monitoring, and access by out-of-state or federal entities for purposes unrelated to local public safety.
Axon and other vendors offer comparable vehicle-intelligence and ALPR products that raise the same fundamental concerns. The problem is not limited to any single company; it is the technology of indiscriminate, persistent vehicle tracking itself.
While law enforcement agencies cite investigative value, the technology subjects the entire driving population—overwhelmingly people not suspected of any crime—to pervasive monitoring. Other jurisdictions have terminated or declined contracts after concluding that the privacy and civil-liberties costs outweigh claimed benefits, or after discovering broader data sharing than originally represented. Several Indiana localities have already begun moving away from these systems for similar reasons.
The right to travel freely on public roads without constant government logging of one’s movements is a basic expectation of a free society. Continuous, suspicionless tracking by automated systems erodes that freedom and shifts the relationship between citizens and government in a direction incompatible with constitutional principles of privacy, limited government, and due process.
Demand
We therefore demand that all Flock Safety cameras, Axon ALPR or vehicle-intelligence cameras, and all similar automated license plate reader systems be removed from Indiana and that permanent legal prohibitions be enacted to prevent their return.
We call on the Governor, the Indiana General Assembly, county commissioners, city and town councils, and all other responsible officials to act promptly to restore the privacy and freedom of movement of Indiana residents.