{"id":64791,"date":"2026-09-14T08:07:43","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T13:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=64791"},"modified":"2026-09-14T08:07:43","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T13:07:43","slug":"n-d-cal-def-gets-hearing-on-what-flock-alpr-is-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=64791","title":{"rendered":"N.D.Cal.: Def gets hearing on what Flock ALPR is like"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Defendant gets a hearing on whether Flock is \u201cmore like a security camera or CSLI data.\u201d United States v. Thomas, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 204025 (N.D. Cal. Sep. 9, 2026):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Flock is a private automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) company. ALPRs are computer-controlled camera systems that automatically capture license plate numbers, along with other details like the vehicle make and model, and possibly photos of the driver or passengers in the car. The question under Carpenter is whether the Flock database is more like a security camera or CSLI data. Unfortunately, the record before the Court is inadequate for the Court to decide that issue. Without more information on how Flock works and how Claussen used the data he received, the Court cannot determine whether its use constituted an intrusion into Thomas&#8217;s constitutionally protected privacy rights and, if so, whether that warrantless intrusion requires suppression of any evidence. See United States v. Gorman, 859 F.3d 706, 716 (9th Cir. 2017), order corrected, 870 F.3d 963 (9th Cir. 2017) (&#8220;[E]vidence qualifies as &#8216;fruit of the poisonous tree&#8217; when &#8216;the illegal activity tends to significantly direct the investigation to the evidence in question.&#8217; \u2026 &#8216;The focus\u2026is on the causal connection between illegality and the evidence.'&#8221;) (quoting United States v. Johns, 891 F.2d 243 (9th Cir. 1989)). The Court therefore grants Thomas&#8217;s motion for an evidentiary hearing. Claussen shall be made available for examination by both the parties and the Court regarding his access to the Flock data. The parties shall also present evidence on how a typical Flock search works and on what information is available to police officers through their use of Flock.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Defendant gets a hearing on whether Flock is \u201cmore like a security camera or CSLI data.\u201d United States v. Thomas, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 204025 (N.D. Cal. Sep. 9, 2026):<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-automatic-license-plate-readers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64792,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64791\/revisions\/64792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}