A San Francisco resident sued the city and its police force over its network of license plate readers, claiming the technology amounts to unconstitutional mass surveillance and that the department let out-of-state agencies access the system’s data, including for tracking tied to federal immigration crackdowns.
The lawsuit, filed this week as a class action in San Francisco federal court, seeks to shut down the network and represents the first legal challenge against it. The suit comes amid heightened concerns about privacy risks, particularly for immigrants, under President Donald Trump’s administration.
The San Francisco Police Department rolled out the camera-equipped license plate readers last year. Police officials praise the technology, which captures license plate information and other data, as a valuable tool that helps them solve crimes, especially at a time when the department is short by about 500 officers…