California has now gone five straight years without passing rules for police license plate readers after a Senate-backed privacy bill died on the final day of the legislative session.
Senate Bill 1013, authored by Democrat Sabrina Cervantes of Riverside, cleared the state Senate but was stopped in the Assembly on August 31 by Majority Leader Cecilia Aguilar-Curry before it could reach a floor vote. The bill would have tightened how plate data is collected and shared and added guardrails against police misuse. A similar measure passed in 2025 only to be vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom.
The defeat lands amid widening backlash. Los Angeles and Redwood City police plus officials in El Cerrito and Campbell have all dropped their Flock Safety contracts in recent weeks, and Secure Justice, the group led by privacy advocate Brian Hofer, tallied more than 200 cities and agencies ending plate reader deals in August, a monthly record since 2021. More than 230 California police and sheriff’s departments keep using the readers, which log the plate numbers of passing cars into networks searchable nationwide. Documented misuse cited by lawmakers runs from unlawful immigration enforcement to stalking, while sheriffs’ groups counter that tighter limits would cripple a tool credited with solving crimes.
Cervantes said she will keep pushing the privacy protections next year, and UC Berkeley Center for Law & Technology codirector Catherine Crump called the outcome disappointing at a moment of bipartisan concern over the mass surveillance tool.
