by Viktoria Sundqvist CTNewsJunkie
HARTFORD, CT — A bill that would put some restrictions in place to regulate automated license plate readers, including Flock cameras, is being finalized and likely to pass this session, a Republican senator said this week.
Dozens of residents and some law enforcement officers provided testimony on House Bill 5449, An Act Concerning Automated License Plate Reader Systems, during the Judiciary Committee’s public hearing this week.
The bill is complementary to a section of Senate Bill No. 4, An Act Concerning Consumer Privacy, that would prevent municipal agencies from entering into or renewing any contracts with any ALPR companies unless they can guarantee that the information collected will not be used in matters inconsistent with state law, such as sharing with federal agencies in violation of Connecticut’s Trust Act.
However, the two bills have some conflicting language on whether data collected by the readers or queried by various police departments would be subject to public disclosure under the state’s Freedom of Information Act, which has some residents concerned.
House Bill 5449 is co-sponsored by three Democratic lawmakers, but several Republicans voiced their support during the public hearing earlier this week, also raising concerns about the data gathered and people’s right to privacy.
“I just need you to understand that there are people who have concerns about the police tracking them wherever they go,” state Rep. Doug Dubitsky, R-Chaplin, said during the hearing.
The automated license plate readers, ALPRs for short, can be found in dozens of municipalities across the state. They are small black devices placed on poles with solar panels on top that take photos of the rear license plate of each passing vehicle and store the photos for 30 days. But in contrast to other devices like speed cameras and red light cameras, ALPRs are not regulated in any way by the state at this time, and it is unclear how many of them are in use in Connecticut.
Law enforcement officials have said the cameras are helpful in solving and preventing crimes and have helped locate missing people and solve burglaries, robberies, assaults and break-ins.
Windsor resident Eric Weiner, who was heavily involved in his town adopting a privacy policy to restrict the use of the cameras and later voting to shut the cameras off until a new contract can be negotiated, told the Judiciary Committee that the management of the data is the most important to him.
“Our founding fathers would be appalled at the surveillance today,” Weiner said.
Matt Blumenthal speaks about ICE detention at the Meriden Public Library on Dec. 24, 2025. Credit: Donald Eng / CTNewsJunkie
State Rep. Matt Blumenthal, D-Stamford, said he is concerned about what the data can be used for, but also about what recording people in public means in general.
“Even if we impose certain restrictions on how our agencies can use the data, we may never know if others are accessing it from other states,” Blumenthal said.
Officials from Atlanta-based Flock Safety, the company behind the most widely used license plate readers, have testified in favor of proposed privacy regulations, but also told lawmakers the company does not own or share the data collected, saying it is owned by each municipality.
Weiner, however, said the Windsor contract with Flock included language that gives the company perpetual license to make use of the collected data, whether for training purposes or other uses.
Each time someone conducts a search in the Flock system for data, they have to provide a justification, which gets stored in the system.
In the Flock system, municipalities can set restrictions for who can access the data as well as limit reasons people can use when searching the data. For all Connecticut departments, for example, there is now a warning that the data cannot be used for immigration enforcement searches as that would violate the Trust Act.
HB 5449 would tighten the rules for how the collected data can be used, prohibit agencies from using it to target someone by race, gender expression or participation in protected activities such as protests, and would change the retention limit from 30 days to 7 days.
But lawmakers stressed the specific language of the bill is still up for discussion.
State Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, said the bill is about 90% to completion and is likely to pass this session. Kissel said he first raised this issue about eight years ago and is glad to see it is finally being discussed.
“At the end of session, we will come together on some sort of legislation on this,” Kissel said. “Even the law enforcement community is supportive and willing to help work out the details.”