Wichita resident and privacy advocate Mason Grimmett is suing the City of Wichita over the city’s warrantless ALPR license plate reader system, alleging it violates the Kansas Constitution. Grimmett is represented by Kansas Justice Institute, a public interest litigation firm owned by Kansas Policy Institute (as is The Sentinel).
An Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) system used sophisticated cameras that capture photographs of every car, including its time and geographic location. The cameras use artificial intelligence to choose the best photo and upload it into the cloud in as little as twenty seconds.
Kansas Justice Institute says the City of Wichita is using its vast and pervasive network of nearly 200 AI-powered cameras in its ALPR system to build a searchable database on every law-abiding Kansan driving in the city — without a warrant or any judicial oversight whatsoever. The ALPR surveillance database reveals where a person has gone and when. Wichita shares its surveillance database with hundreds of other law enforcement agencies. Those agencies could then provide Wichita’s information to other law enforcement agencies.
Grimmett’s lawsuit was filed in Sedgwick County District Court and argues Wichita’s warrantless ALPR dragnet surveillance program violates the Kansas Constitution.
“Mason is a law-abiding citizen trapped in Wichita’s warrantless ALPR dragnet surveillance program. He’s done absolutely nothing wrong, but he’s still being tracked, monitored, and databased. That’s unconstitutional,” Sam MacRoberts, KJI litigation director, said. “If Wichita wants to track its citizens, it needs to go to a judge and get a warrant.”
Grimmett testified against Wichita’s warrantless ALPR dragnet surveillance program in June 2026.
“We must set the boundaries of how and when the police and private corporations can use this tech in their favor,” Grimmett said. We have caught this overreach early enough to where we can limit its oppression before it happens.”
Grimmett grew up in Wichita and now works as a machinist. Mason values his privacy and does not want his movements tracked by the government, analyzed by an AI, and stored in a long-term database. He is a member of the Sunflower Privacy Alliance, which advocates for greater privacy protections in Kansas.
“Due to the ubiquity of Wichita’s Flock ALPR network, Mason cannot go to work, the gym, a doctor’s appointment, a polling place, or a meeting of the Sunflower Privacy Alliance without being tracked and cataloged by the Wichita Police Department and Flock Safety, Inc,” KJI noted.
ALPR privacy concerns cross state lines
The American Civil Liberties Union has raised serious concerns about ALPR systems springing up in cities across the country.
“Flock’s ALPR cameras aren’t like your normal traffic cameras,” the ACLU noted. “This surveillance technology records and tracks every car that comes into view, and then an AI algorithm catalogs the make, model, color, license plate number, bumper stickers, and even scratches. This personal information is then uploaded into a nationwide database that any law enforcement agency with a Flock contract can search — with few regulations or oversight on how they use what they find.”
KJI agreed.
Wichita’s ALPR cameras do far more than simply read license plates or enforce speeding and red-light laws, the law firm noted. The photographs are sent to Flock’s servers where AI analyzes not just the license plate but the make and model of the car, bumper stickers, bike racks, and even dents and scratches to create what Flock calls a “Vehicle Fingerprint.”
All of this data is then stored in a historical database, enabling law enforcement to reconstruct a map of any vehicle’s movements. Police can analyze where a person has gone, if they have visited any “location of interest” identified by police, and even identify the driver’s friends and family through a “convoy analysis” tool that identifies any vehicles that have been seen in the vicinity of a targeted vehicle. In short, Wichita has created an ALPR dragnet to construct a readily accessible database of every driver’s movements, activities, and associations.
“To make matters worse, Wichita does not keep this highly sensitive information private,” KJI noted on its website. “Instead, it freely shares this treasure-trove of personal data with police departments across the country, who can then use that data without any oversight or control by Wichita.”
Indeed, one innocent Kansas couple caught in the ALPR dragnet has been pulled over multiple times, once being forced out of their vehicle at gunpoint. This couple did nothing wrong, but the Flock AI wrongly flagged their minivan as a stolen pickup truck. When asked about such incidents, a Wichita Police captain suggested that the couple should just get a new license plate if they were concerned.
KJI noted that even if the ALPR was being used only for legitimate law enforcement purposes, it would still raise “serious concerns about privacy and government overreach.”
And, in fact, there is significant evidence the systems are being abused.
Former Kechi Police lieutenant Victor Heiar used Wichita’s Flock ALPRs to track his estranged wife. He was found guilty in the Sedgwick County District Court of unlawful use of computers and stalking. Similarly, former Sedgwick Police Chief Lee Nygaard reportedly used a Flock ALPR system to track his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend, resulting in Nygaard’s resignation. The Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training subsequently revoked both Heiar’s and Nygaard’s Law Enforcement Officer Certification because of these abuses. Also, former Bonner Springs Police detective Kyle Rector faces charges for allegedly using ALPRs to track his wife and two men he believed to be romantically involved with her. Such abuses are not limited to Kansas.
