HARRISBURG, PA — Gov. Josh Shapiro backed a statewide ban on Flock Safety license-plate cameras Friday as Pennsylvania lawmakers pursue competing restrictions on automated vehicle surveillance, potentially forcing police departments across the state to change how they collect and use motorists’ location data.
“I would welcome bipartisan legislation to ban these across the state,” Shapiro told reporters Aug. 28 during an unrelated public-safety event in Upper Moreland Township. “This is not something I support.”
“This is not something in the public interest,” he continued. “I think law enforcement needs to have tools to keep communities safe. Flock cameras are not a tool that I support.”
Shapiro’s position adds executive support to a developing legislative fight over automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, which photograph passing vehicles and allow law enforcement to search captured information during investigations.
The proposals circulating in Harrisburg range from an outright prohibition on Flock and similar networked systems to restrictions on data collection, retention and individual access. None of the principal proposals has been enacted.
The debate could have direct implications for Chester County, where municipal police departments use automated license-plate-reading technology, although the systems and vendors vary by jurisdiction.
West Goshen Township Police, for example, operates license-plate readers at multiple township intersections. Publicly available information identifies its system as PlateLogiQ’s VIPR platform rather than a Flock-operated camera network.
That distinction could become significant depending on the final scope of any legislation. A Flock-specific prohibition would be narrower than proposals governing automated plate surveillance regardless of the company supplying the technology.
State Sen. Dan Laughlin, an Erie County Republican, circulated a co-sponsorship memorandum Aug. 27 proposing to prohibit Flock Safety cameras and “substantially similar” networked ALPR systems statewide.
Laughlin argued that networked readers can go beyond identifying vehicles connected to crimes by creating searchable records capable of reconstructing a person’s movements over time.
“Some of these systems do much more than record what happens in a public place,” Laughlin said. “They automatically identify vehicles, catalog their movements and enter that information into a searchable network.”
Other lawmakers are seeking restrictions rather than a broad ban.
State Sen. Lisa Boscola, a Northampton County Democrat, proposed making it illegal to knowingly access or use automated surveillance systems for unauthorized personal or otherwise unlawful purposes.
Her proposal would target individual misuse while preserving legitimate use for criminal investigations, missing-person cases, public safety and other lawful government functions.
State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Franklin County Republican, is pursuing legislation that would prohibit routine, suspicionless collection and retention of motorists’ movements while preserving access when police have a legitimate investigative reason.
Mastriano cited stolen vehicles, abducted children, wanted fugitives and vehicles connected to criminal investigations as circumstances in which the technology could remain available to law enforcement.
“Police should investigate people when there is a legitimate reason to suspect wrongdoing,” Mastriano wrote in his co-sponsorship memorandum. “Government should not surveil everyone in hopes of finding wrongdoing.”
Lawmakers in the state House have also proposed safeguards governing ALPRs and other automated surveillance technologies, including restrictions on government use, data retention and sharing.
The competing approaches leave Pennsylvania with a broader policy question than whether to permit a particular company’s cameras: whether networked vehicle-location databases should remain an ordinary police investigative tool or operate under tighter legal limits.
Law-enforcement supporters contend that license-plate readers can rapidly identify stolen vehicles, locate wanted people and provide investigative leads that otherwise could require considerably more time and personnel.
Flock Safety has cited its own data showing the technology was used in more than 1 million investigations nationwide in 2025 and assisted in stolen-vehicle recoveries and missing-person cases.
Critics focus on the scale of information collected from motorists who are not suspected of crimes and the ability of networked systems to search and share those records across jurisdictions.
Shapiro also told reporters that Pennsylvania State Police do not use Flock cameras and that the technology is not permitted on state property or Pennsylvania Department of Transportation roadways.
For Chester County police agencies, the ultimate operational impact will depend on which approach, if any, clears the General Assembly. A broad prohibition could require departments using covered networked systems to deactivate or replace them, while narrower legislation could leave the technology in place but impose new rules governing searches, retention, data sharing and employee access.
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