Op-ed: Guardrails needed for automated license plate readers

| February 16, 2026 | Policing

The following essay authored by Policing Project counsel Anita Yandle was published in The Seattle Times on February 3, 2026 here.

Every time you leave your house and get in your car, your location and movements are almost certainly being tracked by a sprawling surveillance system of automated license plate readers, or ALPRs.

In Washington, this advanced surveillance system widely used by law enforcement remains largely unregulated. Police use the tools without any guardrails around how, when and where they can be used, and what happens to the data they collect.

Read the full article here.

Share

Anita Yandle

The Policing Project at NYU School of Law

Anita is Counsel on the Policing Project’s legislative team. Previously, she practiced impact litigation, focusing on immigrant worker rights at Public Justice and on reproductive rights at the Lawyering Project. During law school, she worked at the United Nations and the American Civil Liberties Union, and with the Clooney Foundation for Justice through the Columbia Human Rights Clinic. She also spent several years in civil rights policy advocacy prior to joining the legal profession. Anita is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was a Kent and Stone Scholar and recipient of the Parker School Certificate of Achievement in International and Comparative Law, and of the University of Washington.