by Automated license plate readers do much more than alert police when a stolen car drives by. They create searchable records showing where ordinary people have traveled, when they were there, and sometimes who they were with. One Wichita resident believes this is unconstitutional surveillance, and he wants a Kansas court to force the city to turn off the entire camera network.
Mason Grimmett filed a lawsuit against Wichita on July 30. He is represented by the Kansas Justice Institute. The man claims about 200 Flock Safety cameras around the city photograph and catalog every passing vehicle without a warrant, probable cause, or judicial oversight. Grimmett is not asking for a settlement. He wants the court to declare Wichita’s program unconstitutional under Section 15 of the Kansas Bill of Rights and order the cameras removed.
He says he has been “trapped” in “indiscriminate and warrantless surveillance of anyone and everyone who drives through the city of Wichita.”
And this is where the story gets truly interesting.
A ruling with national implications
Either way, the verdict in this case will affect the debate around ALPR. A Grimmett victory would have several consequences. It would likely force Wichita to turn off the cameras. It could also give residents of other states, civil liberties groups, and lawyers a legal roadmap to challenge similar systems. Cities that installed cameras without broad public discussion could suddenly find themselves in court defending against accusations of mass surveillance.
According to the lawsuit, first reported by KSN, nearly all city police officers have access to Wichita’s data, as do hundreds of outside law enforcement agencies. The city reportedly cannot track where information goes after another agency receives it.
This means Wichita may not know who is searching its data, why they are doing so, or whether the information is being passed along. The city also cannot determine whether each request is lawful. If Grimmett loses, it could at least entrench ALPR use in Kansas, if not elsewhere through precedent.
Accuracy in question
The complaint also mentions a case in which an innocent couple was stopped multiple times, including once at gunpoint, after the system mistakenly flagged their minivan as a stolen pickup truck. This brings us to the discussion of accuracy. The lawsuit cites a National Institute of Justice report stating that 80–85% accuracy was typical for ALPR systems in real-world conditions.
If those figures are applied to the 904,603 recorded searches in Wichita over a 32-day period, it could theoretically mean hundreds of thousands of incorrect results. But that is an extrapolation, not a citywide audit, and it is not an admission by Flock that its cameras are wrong 20% of the time. Nevertheless, we have seen plenty of examples of ALPR making mistakes, police not noticing the problem, and negative consequences resulting.
The constitutional argument may ultimately matter more than the math. Grimmett’s lawyers compare the network to a GPS tracker, arguing that license plates have turned from simple registration tags into tools capable of reconstructing a person’s movements. If the judge agrees, Wichita may not be the last city forced to explain why it considers surveillance of everyone an acceptable price for catching a few criminals.
Similar legal challenges are already emerging in other states. Last year, several civil liberties organizations filed complaints about ALPR use in Texas and California, citing a lack of public oversight. At the same time, manufacturers of such systems claim the cameras help solve serious crimes and cite statistics on successful arrests. However, research by independent experts points to significant gaps in recognition accuracy, especially in poor lighting and adverse weather. The Wichita case will likely become an important marker of how willing courts are to limit the use of mass surveillance technologies in the name of protecting citizens’ constitutional rights.
