Orin Kerr

Courts Have Yet to Set Limits on Police Searches of License Plate Data

Stanford legal scholar Orin Kerr argues that the central Fourth Amendment question raised by Flock license plate cameras is not whether a single camera records a car on a public road, but whether a searchable network can reveal a vehicle’s movements across places and over time. Existing Supreme Court decisions offer competing ways to assess that kind of tracking, leaving unsettled when a database query counts as a search and what limits it should face. Kerr also says the debate lacks solid evidence about how often the cameras help police or how warrant requirements would affect their use.