AI identifies drivers for police stops

In the United States, police are arresting drivers who have committed no offenses, with their only fault being taking a route deemed suspicious by artificial intelligence (AI). This practice has raised concerns similar to those depicted in the movie Minority Report.

License plate readers monitor roads

Across the Atlantic, automatic license plate readers are installed along roads, photographing each passing vehicle along with the location and time. The network of the company Flock Safety alone has more than 335,000 such devices and has been able since July 2025 to report routes deemed unusual.

AI used to justify stops without evidence

A practice that the police are allegedly deliberately abusing. Many cases have been documented across the country. In a report published on October 26, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a major American organization defending freedoms, details how police are relying on AI to target drivers without any evidence against them.

Case of a driver stopped without cause

Once the target is identified, the officer only needs to cite a minor infraction to justify the stop. The report cites the case of Grace Knowles, a young woman on a road trip. In September 2025, she left New Orleans heading to Florida when a police officer stopped her because she had supposedly remained too long on the left lane.

AI alerts police to suspicious routes

He questioned her about her route and, doubting her story, invited her into his vehicle. On the screen, a map of the United States retraced her movements, with each point linking to a photo of her license plate. The officer then explained to her that the cameras are "everywhere," including on the back of road signs.

Other cases show similar issues

In reality, it was an AI that had alerted the officer to the young woman's vehicle. And her case is far from isolated. In Texas, a jury ruled in favor of a petroleum equipment seller who was stopped for an alleged lane deviation that was contradicted by footage from his onboard camera.

AI may wrongly target innocent people

A federal agency had alerted local police because he had simply made a round trip between two locations, a route that raised questions for the surveillance system. In the same county, thousands of other drivers are said to have undergone the same treatment.

ACLU warns of abuse of technology

"False Pretexts" The ACLU fears that these algorithms may ensnare many more innocent people than guilty ones and is concerned about political abuses, for example against people who have participated in demonstrations.

ACLU calls for end to mass surveillance

"Even before the emergence of license plate readers and AI, pretextual stops were unfortunately quite common as a police strategy, which is why the ACLU has been fighting for years to ban them," the organization explains. "But what we are witnessing today marks a radical change compared to how the police have always operated: they can now use technology to monitor us all constantly and then rely on AI to analyze the mountains of data thus generated in order to identify suspects, who are then arrested under false pretexts," it continues. In this context, it calls for an end to "license plate surveillance, location tracking in all its forms, and mass surveillance in general."

France has existing license plate monitoring

In France, automated license plate reading already exists for the police, gendarmerie, and customs, under the control of the CNIL. A law passed in 2023 even authorizes customs to test, experimentally, the detection of vehicles that regularly travel together.