Boulder senator proposes limits on police license plate cameras amid privacy concerns
Boulder senator proposes limits on police license plate cameras amid privacy concerns
Publish Date: 2026-02-06 00:35:00
Source Domain: boulderreportinglab.org
State Sen. Judy Amabile of Boulder has introduced legislation aimed at restricting how police and other government agencies access and share people’s historical location data, which is currently possible through technologies such as automatic license plate readers, including Flock cameras.
While the bill was initially drafted with license plate readers in mind, Amabile said it was later expanded to apply to any technology that collects location data, like drones.
Flock Security provides automatic license plate readers to the Boulder Police Department and hundreds of agencies nationwide, allowing police to retain identifying vehicle data for up to 30 days. Officers can currently search state and national Flock databases without a warrant, using AI-assisted tools that allow descriptive searches such as vehicle color or accessories, like a “ladder in the back.” The police department told Boulder Reporting Lab that Flock “has helped us dramatically reduce auto theft in our community, among other crimes.”
But cities across Colorado and the country have faced growing pushback over privacy concerns and reports of data being shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Longmont has halted Flock data sharing. Boulder plans to renew its contract in March.
For years, Boulder automatically shared data from more than 40 cameras on a national database accessed by ICE, Boulder Reporting Lab previously reported. Last June, after months of scrutiny from local privacy advocates, the city turned off the national lookup feature and switched to a more limited sharing arrangement that restricted access to Boulder’s cameras to about 90 Colorado law enforcement agencies.
Local privacy advocates have called Amabile’s bill “a good start,” saying it is stronger than similar bills in other states, but they still worry it leaves gaps. In particular, the bill would not limit police access to location data collected in the previous 24 hours,…
