A Santa Clara County judge has tentatively ruled that San Jose can keep searching its network of roughly 500 automated license plate readers (ALPRs) without a warrant — accepting the city's argument that the cameras are legally no different from ordinary security cameras, and handing digital-rights lawyers an early loss in the first California court test of the technology.

The tentative ruling, reported by KTVU this week, is a setback for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU of Northern California, which sued San Jose in November 2025 arguing that letting police reconstruct a driver's movements from a year of stored plate scans is a warrantless search barred by the California Constitution. The judge's framing — that a plate reader is just a camera — is exactly the analogy the plaintiffs say is wrong, and how it is ultimately resolved could set the rules for ALPR programs across the state even as cities from Mountain View to Stanford back away from the vendor at the center of the fight.

It is a first-round loss for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which filed suit in Santa Clara County Superior Court in November 2025 on behalf of two local nonprofits — the Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, California (CAIR-CA). The complaint names the city, Mayor Matt Mahan, and Police Chief Paul Joseph as defendants, and asks the court to force police to obtain a warrant before querying the ALPR database.

At the heart of the case is an analogy. San Jose argues its interconnected camera network is legally indistinguishable from ordinary security cameras. The judge's tentative ruling adopted that view — and that, the plaintiffs say, is precisely the error.

"The ruling likens these extremely invasive automated license plate reader networks... to simple surveillance cameras," EFF attorney Saira Hussain told KTVU. "We think that it is incorrect to analogize it to these simple surveillance camera. So we think it is much more akin to high tech surveillance technology like cell site location information, geo-fence warrants, aerial surveillance, all of which can provide intimate details about a person's life and track their movements."

That comparison is the plaintiffs' central legal bet. The EFF contends that searching ALPR databases is akin to tracking cell-site location records — which, KTVU noted, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled police generally need a warrant to obtain. The plaintiffs argue the California Constitution's search and privacy protections (Article I, Sections 13 and 1) demand at least as much for a year of stored plate scans.

The original complaint spelled out the stakes in concrete terms: a person driving through an ALPR zone "can have their location information captured multiple times per day," revealing trips "from home to work" or to "a house of worship, a doctor's office, or a protest." San Jose retains that data for a full year and lets officers statewide search it — a scope that, EFF notes, few California agencies match.

For the nonprofit plaintiffs, the case is about who gets watched. "This is not just about data or technology — it's about power, accountability, and our right to move freely without being watched," CAIR-San Francisco Bay Area Executive Director Zahra Billoo said when the suit was filed. SIREN Executive Director Huy Tran framed it narrowly: "This case does not raise the question of whether these cameras should be used... We can protect the privacy rights of our residents with one simple rule: Access to the data should only happen once approved under a judicial warrant."

The tentative ruling is not the final word. According to KTVU, the EFF is scheduled to appear in court for a final opportunity to present arguments before the judge finalizes the decision.

The legal green light lands as the political ground shifts the other way. Per KTVU, Mountain View, El Cerrito, and Santa Clara County have canceled or declined to renew contracts with Flock Safety, the dominant ALPR vendor across the Bay Area — Mountain View after local police discovered Flock had permitted federal government access to the city's data without prior authorization. Stanford University is dropping Flock for a competitor, Genetec Cloudrunner. Flock, which says it does not share data with federal authorities, defended the technology through spokesperson Paris Lewbel: "When a tool that is actively helping solve violent crimes, locate suspects, and find missing people is removed, public safety does not improve – it moves backwards."

However the San Jose judge rules, the outcome will echo well past Santa Clara County — because it is one of the first times a California court has had to decide whether a plate reader is a camera or a tracking device.