WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.—Today, New York drivers are challenging the legality of a mass vehicle surveillance system operated by the Westchester County Police Department (WCPD) that indiscriminately tracks their personal vehicle data and driving patterns. The class-action lawsuit, filed by the Policing Project at New York University School of Law, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Freshfields LLP, concerns one of the largest and most technologically advanced vehicle surveillance systems in the country, with WCPD capturing and analyzing hundreds of millions of vehicle records and sharing them with outside agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“I’m a teacher and a mother. I drive to work, I drive my kids where they need to go, and I try to show up for people in my community,” said Sarah Moore, a plaintiff in the case. “It’s scary to think that my car can be tracked just because I’m going about my life, and that this information can be shared with ICE. I shouldn't be watched by the police every time I get behind the wheel. No one should.”

The suit argues that by collecting and storing extensive personal information about millions of drivers, the program violates the New York State Constitution’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and exceeds WCPD’s authority under New York law. The lawsuit asks the court to declare the system unlawful and prohibit WCPD from operating it. 

“In a democracy, a police department cannot unilaterally decide—without legislative authorization—to surveil the daily movements of its own citizens without any real accountability, transparency, or oversight,” said Barry Friedman, founder and faculty director of the Policing Project at NYU School of Law. “At a time when our personal data is being collected and misused on an unprecedented scale, this indiscriminate data surveillance must not be allowed to continue in the dark.”

WCPD’s highly advanced, invasive system deploys at least 575 cameras—known as automatic license plate readers—that indiscriminately record vehicles on Westchester County roads, from residential neighborhoods to major highways, and analyzes those recordings using sophisticated AI tools. These cameras are connected to a database containing hundreds of millions of vehicle recordings, each of which WCPD retains for at least two years. WCPD provides more than 50 outside agencies with access to that data, including ICE.

“Westchester County’s mass surveillance apparatus is infringing on New Yorkers’ privacy and violating basic constitutional limits on police power,” said Daniel Lambright, director of Criminal Justice Litigation at the New York Civil Liberties Union. “Right now, the Westchester County Police Department is collecting and storing huge swathes of highly personal data—making it easy for police officers and the government to track where drivers work, who they meet, where they pray, and even which doctors they visit.”

In 2024 alone, the system collected more than 264 million recordings, more than 99 percent of which were unrelated to any suspected crime or investigation. This data can reveal intimate portraits of people’s movements, routines, and associations. The groups say WCPD operates the system without meaningful safeguards governing how officers may collect, use, or share the data. 

“This case is about whether we can move through our communities without the government compiling a digital dossier on our activities and associations,” said Jake Karr, staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute. “We shouldn’t have to worry that we’re being watched and recorded every time we get behind the wheel. That sort of mass surveillance should have no place in an open, democratic society.”

The complaint also raises concerns about how the cameras are deployed, including their concentration in neighborhoods with largely Black and Latino populations that are already more heavily policed.

Read the complaint here.

Read more about the lawsuit, Umemoto v. Westchester County Police Department, here.

Lawyers on the case include Daniel Lambright, Thomas Munson, Amreeta Mathai, Chantelle Williams, Anya Weinstock, and Molly Biklen from the NYCLU; Jake Karr and Alex Abdo for the Knight First Amendment Institute; Barry Friedman and Nancy Glass for the Policing Project; and Justina Sessions, Eunice Leong, and Steven Fisher, as well as Law Clerks Ortal Isaac and Sabrina Zhang, for Freshfields LLP.

For more information, contact: Gabriel Tyler, [email protected]