Stop Flock Cameras and Mass License-Plate Surveillance Across New Jersey
To New Jersey’s Governor, State Legislature, Attorney General, county officials, mayors, municipal councils, police departments, and all other public officials responsible for approving or operating automated surveillance technology:

We, the undersigned residents, taxpayers, business owners, visitors, and concerned citizens of New Jersey, are calling for immediate statewide action concerning the growing use of Flock Safety cameras and other automated license-plate recognition systems throughout New Jersey.

This is no longer an issue affecting only one town, one county, or Long Beach Island.

It affects every person who drives on a public road in New Jersey.

From Long Beach Island and Ocean County to North Jersey, Central Jersey, South Jersey, the Shore, our cities, suburbs, and rural communities, automated license-plate readers are creating an expanding network capable of recording where vehicles travel, when they travel, and potentially allowing that information to be searched and shared.

The question is bigger than whether surveillance technology can occasionally assist law enforcement.

The question is:

How much surveillance should government be permitted to conduct on ordinary people who have done absolutely nothing wrong?

Being on a Public Road Should Not Mean Being Entered Into a Government Database
Driving to work is not suspicious.

Taking your children to school is not suspicious.

Visiting a doctor, attorney, religious institution, political meeting, dispensary, business, friend, family member, or vacation destination is not suspicious.

Yet automated license-plate recognition technology can collect information about vehicles simply because they pass a camera.

When enough cameras are connected together, individual plate scans can become something much more powerful: a record of movement.

New Jersey residents should not have to surrender their privacy simply because they choose to drive on public roads.

Public Safety Does Not Require Unlimited Surveillance
We support legitimate law-enforcement efforts to investigate serious crimes and protect our communities.

But supporting law enforcement does not require giving government agencies unrestricted access to databases containing information about millions of innocent motorists.

There must be a distinction between targeted investigation based upon legitimate suspicion and indiscriminate collection of information about everyone.

Technology should not eliminate that distinction.

The government should not collect information about an entire population simply because that information might someday become useful.

New Jersey Needs Clear Statewide Rules
Communities across New Jersey should not be adopting powerful surveillance systems without meaningful public debate and enforceable protections.

Before these systems are expanded further, New Jersey should establish clear statewide standards addressing:

How long license-plate information may be retained.
Who may search the information.
What legal justification is required before conducting a search.
Which agencies, jurisdictions, companies, or third parties may receive the information.
Whether information may be shared outside New Jersey.
Whether federal agencies may access locally collected information.
How unauthorized searches are detected and punished.
How cybersecurity breaches are handled.
Whether residents are notified when municipalities install these systems.
Whether elected officials must approve surveillance programs publicly.
Whether independent audits are required.
What happens when a vehicle is incorrectly identified.
How individuals can challenge misuse of their information.
Whether information collected about people who are not suspected of crimes should be retained at all.
These decisions are too important to be buried inside municipal contracts, police department policies, or technology-company terms of service.

The Public Deserves Transparency
Before a municipality installs automated license-plate cameras, residents should know:

Where are the cameras?

What information are they collecting?

How long is that information being stored?

Who can access it?

Who has accessed it?

Who is it being shared with?

What protections exist against abuse?

What happens when the technology gets something wrong?

And perhaps most importantly:

Who is watching the people operating the surveillance system?

Public officials work for the public.

Surveillance programs should therefore be subject to meaningful public oversight.

Technology Can Be Abused Even When Originally Installed With Good Intentions
The concern is not simply what these systems are being used for today.

It is what an enormous statewide surveillance infrastructure could be used for tomorrow.

Databases change.

Policies change.

Administrations change.

Technology becomes more powerful.

Systems become interconnected.

Information originally collected for one purpose can later become useful for another.

Once an infrastructure capable of tracking vehicle movements has been built across New Jersey, dismantling it becomes far more difficult.

That is why safeguards must come before mass deployment—not afterward.

False Matches and Mistakes Have Real Consequences
Automated systems are not infallible.

A mistaken plate identification, incorrect database entry, stolen plate, cloned plate, or other error can place an innocent person in an extremely serious situation.

When technology becomes part of a law-enforcement decision, there must always be meaningful human verification and accountability.

No New Jersey resident should be detained, searched, questioned, or treated as a criminal simply because a computer system produced an incorrect result.

Long Beach Island Should Be Protected—But So Should Every Community in New Jersey
Long Beach Island brought many residents' attention to this issue because communities such as Long Beach Township, Beach Haven, Ship Bottom, Surf City, Harvey Cedars, and Barnegat Light represent exactly the kinds of places where people value safety while also valuing freedom, community, and privacy.

But this discussion cannot end at the bridges leading onto LBI.

The same fundamental rights should apply whether someone is driving through:

Newark, Jersey City, Trenton, Atlantic City, Camden, Toms River, Manahawkin, Waretown, Freehold, Princeton, Cape May, Sussex County, Bergen County—or anywhere else in New Jersey.

Privacy should not depend upon your ZIP code.

Our Request to New Jersey Officials
We are calling upon state, county, and municipal officials to:

Pause the expansion of Flock Safety cameras and similar automated license-plate surveillance systems throughout New Jersey until comprehensive protections are established.

We further call upon the State of New Jersey to establish enforceable statewide rules governing automated license-plate surveillance, including strict data-retention limits, access controls, transparency requirements, independent audits, cybersecurity protections, and consequences for misuse.

Municipalities currently operating these systems should publicly disclose their policies, contracts, camera deployments, retention periods, sharing practices, and access procedures to the fullest extent permitted by law.

New Jersey should also require regular public reporting concerning how these systems are being used and whether their demonstrated public-safety benefits justify the extraordinary amount of information being collected about innocent motorists.

This Is Not Anti-Police. It Is Pro-Constitution, Pro-Privacy, and Pro-Accountability.
Our police officers have an important and difficult responsibility.

They should have appropriate tools to investigate crime.

But every powerful government tool requires boundaries.

Supporting constitutional protections and reasonable limitations on surveillance is not opposition to law enforcement.

It is one of the foundations of a free society.

Public safety and individual liberty are not mutually exclusive.

New Jersey can protect both.

New Jersey Should Not Become a Statewide Tracking Network
We should not casually create an infrastructure capable of documenting the movements of millions of people simply because technology now makes it possible.

A person should be able to travel through New Jersey without automatically creating a searchable history of everywhere their vehicle has been observed.

Once mass surveillance becomes normal, reversing it becomes extremely difficult.

This is the moment to establish boundaries.

Before thousands more cameras are installed.

Before databases become larger.

Before systems become more interconnected.

Before temporary policies become permanent infrastructure.

Sign This Petition
By signing this petition, you are calling on New Jersey officials to protect the privacy and constitutional rights of every resident and visitor to our state.

We demand transparency, accountability, strict limitations, and meaningful public oversight before automated license-plate surveillance expands any further.

This started as a concern about cameras on Long Beach Island.

It has become something much larger.

This is about the future of privacy in New Jersey.
Stop mass license-plate surveillance.
Protect Long Beach Island. Protect Ocean County. Protect every community in New Jersey.
Our roads should connect our communities—not track them.