Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) aren’t just helping police investigate crimes anymore. They’re now being used to flag drivers for supposedly “suspicious” driving patterns.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sounded the alarm Monday in a blog post on Monday, warning that law enforcement agencies across the United States are increasingly using license plate readers and AI-powered tools to pull over drivers even if they aren’t suspected of having committed a specific crime.

The post opens with the story of Grace Knowles, a woman in her 20s from northern Virginia who took a road trip through Oregon, Texas, and Louisiana in September 2025. On her way to Florida, she was pulled over by an officer who claimed she had spent too much time driving in the left lane.

The officer questioned Knowles about her travels and asked for proof that she had been in New Orleans. He eventually identified himself as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that was on a project for human and drug trafficking. He told her that her license plate had been flagged for suspicious travel patterns.

After she convinced him she was just on a road trip, he offered to show her what he was looking at on a computer in his car.

“It was basically a heat map of the U.S., and I could see different circles where I’d been, and when he clicked on it, it was a photo of my license plate,” Knowles told the ACLU.

When she asked how authorities had collected images of her license plate, the officer told her the cameras were everywhere, including on top of highway signs.

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