A bipartisan amendment introduced by Rep. Scott Perry and Rep. Jesús García would ban police use of automated license plate readers nationwide by conditioning $580 billion in federal transportation funding on compliance. The single-sentence amendment, obtained by WIRED, restricts Title 23 recipients to using ALPRs only for tolling. The House Transportation Committee marks up the underlying surface transportation reauthorization bill Thursday at 10 am ET.

The amendment's reach would be vast. Title 23 funds roughly a quarter of all US public road mileage, covering most state and county arteries. That means every state, city, or county taking federal highway money would need to remove or restructure ALPR camera networks currently mounted on poles, overpasses, and police cruisers that photograph every passing plate and feed searchable databases shared across jurisdictions.

The push follows mounting evidence of ALPR misuse. In Illinois, an audit found Flock Group, the operator of the country's largest ALPR network with roughly 88,000 cameras, had given federal agencies access to state plate data. A Texas deputy reportedly queried Flock's network to track a woman because she had an abortion. San Jose's 474-camera system captured 360 million photos in 2024 alone. Rather than litigate Fourth Amendment questions in court, this amendment sidesteps the legal fight by tying federal money to restrictions, a tactic Congress has used before with drinking age laws.