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Abstract

With the passage of Assembly Bill 645 in 2023, California has authorized speed camera pilot programs in six cities throughout the state. The goal for this legislation is to reduce speeding and speed- related casualties through a network of automated traffic surveillance. By issuing civil fines for speeding violations detected by the camera, the hope is that motorists will reduce their speed on the road.

Though touted as a way to deter speeding motorists, a network of automated cameras invites privacy concerns. The Bill attempts to address these concerns, in large part, by assuring that the photographs and other metadata taken of speeding motorists will be deleted after a set time. Like the analyses of speed cameras and other traffic surveillance in the past, the Bill seeks to assuage privacy concerns by enforcing limits on how long data is kept by the system.

But today, surveillance networks can erode privacy by far more insidious means than producing and storing grainy photographs of vehicles. Law enforcement agencies have an arsenal of tools that can take photographs and metadata as the starting point of long-term analyses, tracking, and information-gathering of any person who happens to be under an automated camera’s vigilant eye. Under both Fourth Amendment history and modern jurisprudence, surveillance networks proposed by legislation like Assembly Bill 645 likely cannot pass constitutional muster because of their ability to effortlessly compile information on any person without a warrant. And though the purpose of traffic surveillance like speed cameras is well-meaning, the privacy safeguards included in the Bill are ineffectual and reveal a misunderstanding of modern privacy concerns. Legislation like Assembly Bill 645 should prompt increased scrutiny for proposed surveillance networks, scrutiny that keeps in mind the Fourth Amendment’s purpose—preventing indiscriminate governmental intrusion.

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