Court ruling

A federal jury ruled against Bexar County after Alek Schott was pulled over in March 2022 on Interstate 35 when his license plate was flagged by a reader. Schott was detained for 76 minutes and a K-9 search found nothing. The jury awarded $76 and found the stop violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Attorneys for Schott are seeking an injunction against such stops.

In September 2026, a federal jury in San Antonio found Bexar County liable for an unconstitutional traffic-stop program using Flock surveillance cameras. The jury ruled that the March 15, 2022 stop of Alek Schott on Interstate 35 violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Flock cameras flagged Schott’s truck as suspicious, and a deputy stopped him, held him for over an hour, and searched his vehicle. The jury awarded Schott $76, one dollar per minute of detention. Court documents show the county’s operation ran for four years and targeted countless motorists.

In September 2026 a federal jury in Texas ruled for Alek Schott, who sued Bexar County and its sheriff over a 2022 traffic stop that began with automated license plate reader data. The jury awarded $76, one dollar for each minute he was detained. Schott was stopped in March 2022 driving home from Carrizo Springs; a deputy later admitted the stated reason, lane drifting, was bogus, and Schott’s dashcam showed no drifting. The tip came through a law enforcement WhatsApp group from someone called Kiki with access to license plate reader data, citing Schott’s one-day turnaround. A drug dog alerted and the truck was searched; nothing was found. The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office touts its use of Flock Safety cameras.

On Aug. 13, 2026, the Washington cities of Stanwood and Sedro-Woolley settled a public records case for $80,000, split $40,000 each, with Jose Rodriguez, an Oregon resident who had requested Flock camera images from Stanwood in April 2025 and Sedro-Woolley in May 2025. The cities had sought a declaratory judgment that the images were not public records; on November 6, 2025, Skagit County Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Neidzwski ruled they were. After a new state law exempting plate reader footage took effect in March 2026, the cities dropped their appeal, and on July 16 the judge ruled they had wrongfully withheld the records. Cascadia Daily News reported that Rodriguez filed 53 requests to Washington governments between September 2024 and October 2025, that at least 15 jurisdictions paid settlements of $5,000 to $40,000 each, totalling more than $300,000, and that at least 13 recipients cancelled Flock contracts or deactivated cameras. Everett separately approved a $25,000 settlement in June 2026 over a Flock records request.

In June 2026, Everett, Washington approved a $25,000 settlement with Jose Rodriguez to end litigation over Flock Safety automated license plate reader records. Rodriguez had requested approximately 30 minutes of the city’s Flock data. A Snohomish County judge ruled the recordings were public records, and Everett temporarily paused its Flock camera system. The city had argued the footage was not subject to public disclosure.

In May 2026 Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Herrod ruled that Senate Bill 1543, the Arizona law that removed Scottsdale voters’ ability to hold a referendum on Axon’s planned headquarters and housing project, is constitutional. A residents’ group, Taxpayers Against Awful Apartment Zoning Exemptions, had gathered enough signatures to put the rezoning on the ballot before the governor signed the bill. The law requires cities of 200,000 to 500,000 residents to allow hotel and multifamily housing on land zoned like the Axon parcel without a public hearing. Herrod wrote that the bill was clearly triggered by Axon’s zoning situation but, because it can apply in other cities, is not a special law. The group announced on June 1 that it would appeal. Scottsdale’s council voted 6-1 on September 12, 2025 to file a notice of claim against the state.

In November 2025, Skagit County Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Neidzwski ruled that Flock-generated images count as public records under Washington law even if police never download them. The ruling followed public records requests by Oregon man Jose Rodriguez, who submitted 53 requests between September 2024 and October 2025. The decision helped trigger Washington’s Driver Privacy Act, which took effect March 30, 2026, limiting retention and exempting ALPR data from public records requests.

On March 20, 2025 U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman in the Northern District of Illinois granted final approval to a nationwide class settlement of consolidated Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act and other state-law claims against Clearview AI, which built a database of tens of billions of face images scraped from social media and other websites. Rather than a cash fund, the class receives a 23 percent equity stake in the company, valued at about $51.75 million on an agreed $225 million company valuation as of January 2024, with an option to take 17 percent of revenue through September 2027 instead. The value is contingent on the class being able to monetize the stake. The deal followed the ACLU’s separate 2022 Illinois consent order barring Clearview from selling its database to private entities nationwide and to any Illinois entity, including police, for five years. European regulators have separately fined the company, including a €30.5 million Dutch penalty announced September 3, 2024.

In spring 2024, the California Supreme Court refused to hear Chula Vista’s appeal, affirming an appellate ruling that the city’s blanket refusal to disclose police drone video was too broad. The case began in 2021 when La Prensa publisher Art Castañares filed a public records request for drone footage. The ruling sets a statewide precedent affecting over a dozen California cities using or exploring first-responder drones. Castañares said, ‘Our lawsuit created a statewide legal precedent that improves the public’s access to police records that agencies have tried to shield from disclosure.’

On April 14, 2023 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Axon could bring its constitutional challenge to the Federal Trade Commission’s structure in federal district court rather than first going through the FTC’s own administrative process. The dispute began after Axon acquired rival body-camera maker Vievu in 2018. The FTC began an antitrust investigation into the acquisition. Axon sued, arguing the proceeding violated its due-process rights and that the FTC’s structure improperly insulated it from the president. A district court had dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds. On October 9, 2023 the FTC dismissed its antitrust complaint against Axon.

On February 17, 2022, the ACLU and ACLU of Maryland reached a settlement with the Baltimore Police Department in a lawsuit challenging the department’s aerial surveillance program, under which planes equipped with high-resolution cameras operated by Persistent Surveillance Systems flew over the entire city at least 40 hours a week. The settlement followed a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that found the pilot program unconstitutional. The settlement blocks the city from implementing a similar program in the future, stops police from accessing collected data except in connection with existing prosecutions, and requires the destruction of all records from the program.

In a § 1983 excessive force lawsuit by Dustin Woods against officer Jason Scissons, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona ruled that the City of Prescott failed to preserve dashboard camera footage from the incident. The court found that dash cams in at least two police vehicles would have recorded relevant footage and that the city had a duty to preserve it. It imputed the spoliation to Scissons and allowed a jury instruction that if the jury finds the city destroyed the footage with intent to deprive Woods of its use, it may infer the footage was unfavorable to the city.

On March 30, 2009, San Francisco police pulled over Denise Green, a 47-year-old black woman, after the department’s automated license plate reader misread her plate and matched it to a stolen vehicle. Between four and six officers pointed guns at her and ordered her out of the car. After she was searched and her car searched, the police let her go. The ACLU later reported the reader had misread a ‘3’ as a ‘7’. A district court found against her; the Ninth Circuit reinstated the case in May 2014. In 2015 the Board of Supervisors passed Ordinance 181-15 authorizing a $495,000 settlement of her lawsuit.