E.D.La.: ALPR tracking of def’s vehicle to connect to a robbery wasn’t 4A violation

Defendant’s argument ALPR tracking of her vehicle connecting it and her to a Hobbs Act bar robbery in New Orleans is akin to CSLI is rejected. There aren’t that many cameras in the city, and the information produced was really limited compared to CSLI. United States v. Cooper, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1466 (E.D. La. Jan. 6, 2025):

In light of these findings of fact, the Court finds that the ALPR data at issue here is not comparable to CSLI data, and the reasoning of Carpenter does not extend to searches thereof. “Unlike the all-pervasive cell-site location data collection in Carpenter, and its ‘all-encompassing’ and ‘near-perfect surveillance’ of a cell phone user’s comings and goings, the ALPR technology at issue captures only the public movements of vehicles that happen to pass by locations on a public street in view of an ALPR camera.” With only 60 cameras operating throughout the city, the data collected by the ALPR system is far more limited than CSLI. A person must actively pass by one of the cameras for any data to be collected and even then, only a small amount of information is collected and retained. Individual snapshots in certain locations at specific times “hardly rise to the level of persistent, unceasing public surveillance that the courts found troublesome in Carpenter.” Further, the Court in Carpenter distinguished cell phones from cars, noting that “[w]hile individuals regularly leave their vehicles, they compulsively carry cell phones with them all the time.” Other district courts considering this issue have reached the same conclusion, holding that the data gleaned from the ALPR database does not rise to the level of CSLI data and does not implicate the concerns raised in Carpenter. “[C]ourts have held that law enforcement’s use of the ALPR database does not infringe upon an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy because it does not reveal intimate details of an individual’s daily life, nor does it track a person’s every movement.”

The facts at issue here are more akin to the warrantless tracking of a discrete automotive journey that the Supreme Court deemed permissible in United States v. Knott. There, the Court considered the Government’s use of a “beeper” to aid in tracking a vehicle through traffic. The Court held that “[a] person travelling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another.” It noted that the defendant “voluntarily conveyed to anyone who wanted to look the fact that he was travelling over particular roads in a particular direction, the fact of whatever stops he made, and the fact of his final destination when he exited from public roads onto private property.” The Court noted that “[v]isual surveillance from public places” would have “sufficed to reveal” all of the same facts to the police and that the Fourth Amendment did not prohibit the police from using technology to augment their visual surveillance.

Here too, the police could have observed Defendant driving around New Orleans before and after the robbery through visual surveillance. Defendant drove on public streets such that “anyone who wanted to look” could have observed her movements. The ALPR cameras “merely augment the same sensory faculties” that have always been used by law enforcement. The facts in the record simply do not support a reasonable expectation of privacy in Defendant’s movements within the reasoning of Carpenter. Accordingly, Defendant has not shown that her Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the Government’s warrantless ALPR search of her license plate number.