Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

by sodality2 on 12/10/2025, 5:42:30 PM

Built this over the last few days, based on a Rust codebase that parses the latest ALPR reports from OpenStreetMaps, calculates navigation statistics from every tagged residential building to nearby amenities, and tests each route for intersection with those ALPR cameras (Flock being the most widespread).These have gotten more controversial in recent months, due to their indiscriminate large scale data collection, with 404 Media publishing many original pieces (<a href="https://www.404media.co/tag/flock/" rel="nofollow">https://www.404media.co/tag/flock/</a>) about their adoption and (ab)use across the country. I wanted to use open source datasets to track the rapid expansion, especially per-county, as this data can be crucial for 'deflock' movements to petition counties and city governments to ban and remove them.In some counties, the tracking becomes so widespread that most people can't go anywhere without being photographed. This includes possibly sensitive areas, like places of worship and medical facilities.The argument for their legality rests upon the notion that these cameras are equivalent to 'mere observation', but the enormous scope and data sharing agreements in place to share and access millions of records without warrants blurs the lines of the fourth amendment.

https://alpranalysis.com

Comments

by: yannyu

I've thought about this a lot as I see more and more reckless driving in the areas I live in. Surveillance is generally a net negative, but it's also bad when you see people speeding around schools, rolling through stop signs, and running red lights. We seem to have a worst of all situations where traffic is getting increasingly difficult to enforce, driving is getting more dangerous year by year, and we're terrified of government overreach if we add any automation at all to enforcement.I don't know the solution, but I do know that in the US we've lost 10-15 years of progress when it comes to traffic fatalities.

12/10/2025, 8:28:06 PM

by: runtimepanic

One thing this surfaces nicely is how scale changes the privacy model. Individually these look like “mere observation,” but once you can reconstruct routine movement patterns across counties, the data starts behaving more like long-term tracking than casual surveillance.

12/10/2025, 7:17:56 PM

by: s1mon

I understand why these statistics may be interesting, but all I really want to see is a map of the locations of the ALPR cameras. I would add an easy link to that data on this site.

12/10/2025, 8:22:24 PM

by: jollyllama

I don't see how this provides actionable info for the individual. Unfortunately, this is just going to be a dashboard for pro-surveillance elements to see "how are we doing in our neck of the woods?", or a sales tool for Flock to find untapped markets.

12/11/2025, 3:30:26 PM

by: joecool1029

The county lists are wrong, at least they are for my state of New Jersey. We have 21 counties, not 27. Is it picking up the bordering counties that might have overlapping contracts or something?

12/10/2025, 8:04:11 PM

by: Barathkanna

This is great work. Once ALPR coverage is dense enough that you can’t go anywhere without generating a permanent record, the “mere observation” argument falls apart. Mapping this openly is one of the few ways communities can actually understand what they’ve signed up for.

12/10/2025, 8:39:20 PM

by: hamdingers

100% coverage seems like an inevitability in a country where filming in public is a constitutionally protected right and networked ALPR capability is possible (if not regularly offered yet) in commodity doorbell cameras.

12/10/2025, 7:22:25 PM

by: ruthie_cohen

If I was American I would certainly be using this tool as a consideration when moving / buying a new house.I’ve watched a lot of the coverage by Benn Jordan on Flock cameras and their inherent vulnerabilities, and it’s deeply concerning.The applications of these technologies far outpaces appropriate checks and balances, and the increasing fusion between law enforcement, intelligence and private industry is largely ignored by the larger population.Thanks for developing this, it’s important to visualise the virus-like spread of these technologies and see where it is concentrated.

12/10/2025, 8:47:25 PM

by: tptacek

From just a few days ago:<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46170302">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46170302</a>(Repeating: in a few months sites like this will be replaceable with a static HTML page that says "yes, you've been tagged by an ALPR".)

12/10/2025, 10:16:41 PM

by: flyinghamster

Data accuracy can be a problem. It lists 115 counties for Illinois, which is news to me since Illinois has 102 counties.For example, Kenosha County is in Wisconsin, not Illinois.

12/11/2025, 2:11:30 PM

by: genewitch

How come any area that has enough homes in the data set and ALPR have Veterinarians as the most surveilled, then Hospitals, then Libraries, usually over everything else, including food and church?The strange implication is that they're watching the vet office traffic to find people who are getting treated by vets instead of doctors?also my parish reports 0.0% across the board, and all the parishes near me. you have to get on the coast to get above 25%.

12/11/2025, 2:13:54 AM

by: jcims

I had a thought a while back about companies like Tesla, with cameras on the road and driving models that could classify bad drivers, being in a position to at least a) avoid those drivers if they are encountered on the road and b) record/report them to the police.Then I had an intrusive thought of a small squad of cybertruck 'enforcers' running around autonomously, tracking these drivers down via the live network of incoming video and doling out punishment to the chief offenders.

12/10/2025, 9:28:07 PM

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12/10/2025, 10:32:41 PM

by: DivingForGold

<a href="https://archive.ph/et1uD" rel="nofollow">https://archive.ph/et1uD</a>

12/10/2025, 6:43:40 PM

by: aunty_helen

Number plates are just one of the privacy tracking technologies. Any modern connected car infotainment system will report and have that data sold or anything that has Bluetooth can be tracked.

12/10/2025, 9:04:10 PM

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12/11/2025, 12:26:12 PM

by: xnx

I'm surprised an app like Citizen hasn't tried to match Flock with a dashcam that automatically shares recordings.

12/10/2025, 10:34:14 PM

by: reallyaaryan

Can you think of any use cases apart from government surveillance?

12/11/2025, 10:47:09 AM

by: eliaspro

Small nitpick: you're writing OpenStreetMaps instead of OpenStreetMap (no trailing s) everywhere.

12/11/2025, 9:34:45 AM

by: DeathArrow

So you have a set of positions for some services (coffee shops, groceries), a set of positions for cameras and a set of positions for homes.But how you model people actually driving each day and their paths? Because the accuracy of your conclusions seems to heavily depend on the accuracy of modelling.

12/11/2025, 10:46:09 AM

by: renewiltord

When it's against the law to not be on an ALPR camera, only outlaws won't be on ALPR cameras! Well, in SF, this is generally true because there is no enforcement of a missing license plate.

12/11/2025, 2:41:23 AM

by: fpauser

Mass surveillance in the "Land of the Free" [tm]. LOL

12/11/2025, 11:24:47 AM

by: tamimio

What about Ring cams? Is there a deRing site? Also, the flock cams are beyond ALPR, I saw a video before about some investigation and one of the things was how flock was used to recognize a car without a plate. Flock is an automated car recognition system, the plate is just part of it. Makes me wonder if having extremely unique or “cloaking” car design will fool it.

12/11/2025, 2:06:05 AM

by: T3RMINATED

[dead]

12/11/2025, 3:19:59 PM

by: onetokeoverthe