Driver wins $76 after ALPR led to bogus traffic stop, drug searches

According to the Institute for Justice, which helped Schott with his lawsuit, the entire stop was a travesty. “Footage from Alek’s own dashcam shows he never drifted lanes,” the group said. “Bodycam footage from the deputy shows Alek gave the officer calm, mundane answers about a run-of-the-mill work trip. Nothing about what he said was suspicious, but the deputy called a drug dog anyway. And moments before the dog alerted by jumping on the truck, the handler’s bodycam shows that he signaled the dog.”

Schott was detained for 76 minutes while his truck was thoroughly searched. Cops found nothing, despite the drug dog’s alert.

Schott eventually sued Bexar County. In late September, he won—the jury gave him the token $76 he requested.

“Money was never what mattered,” his lawyers said. “This was and has always been about the Constitution. IJ will now ask the court to enjoin Bexar County from using baseless traffic stops as a tool for warrantless searches, and will work to enforce the precedent across the state.”

“This is what mass surveillance looks like when it reaches the shoulder of the highway,” Josh Windham, one of Schott’s attorneys, said in a statement. “An AI-powered camera flagged Alek’s plate. An anonymous law enforcement agent decided his completely ordinary trip looked suspicious. And a deputy went out and found a violation that never happened.”

The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, which touts its use of Flock Safety cameras, declined Ars’ request for comment.

Who watches the watchers?

Longtime critics of license plate readers generally, and Flock in particular, told Ars that there is increasing scrutiny of the use of this technology.

“I think this case seems like a pretty quintessential example of what we’re seeing more and more as the public digs into ALPR surveillance: AI tech that vendors sell with pie-in-the-sky promises to improve public safety often face a tough reality check,” Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center of Democracy and Technology’s Security and Surveillance Project, wrote in an email to Ars.

“The truth is that ALPRs create serious dangers for Americans’ civil liberties, and if there aren’t sensible guardrails and checks on how these powerful tools are used, they also create serious risks to public safety with drivers being improperly pulled over or stalked by officers abusing the tech.”