On October 3, 2025, California’s simmering debate over digital privacy and law enforcement technology reached a boiling point when Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a lawsuit against the City of El Cajon and its police department. The charge: repeatedly violating California’s almost decade-old SB 34 law, which strictly prohibits the sharing of automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with federal and out-of-state law enforcement agencies. The case, filed in San Diego County Superior Court, has sent ripples through police departments, privacy advocates, and immigrant communities across the state. But as details emerge, it’s clear the issue stretches far beyond the city limits of El Cajon, touching on the practices of agencies in cities like Pasadena—and raising tough questions about oversight, public safety, and civil liberties.
ALPR systems, now a common sight on patrol vehicles and city intersections, automatically log the plate number, time, date, and location of passing vehicles. Law enforcement touts these systems as invaluable for solving crimes, tracking stolen vehicles, and even building the “backbone of a real-time crime center,” as Pasadena PD’s Lt. Sam de Sylva described at a May 19th City Council meeting, according to Local News Pasadena. But the very power of this technology—its ability to sweep up vast amounts of data—has triggered concerns about how that information is used, who can access it, and whether it’s being shared in ways that violate state law and compromise individual privacy.
SB 34, the California law at the heart of the lawsuit, was enacted nearly ten years ago with a clear aim: to keep sensitive information about Californians within the state’s borders. The Legislature’s rationale, as Attorney General Bonta bluntly put it during his announcement, was “to ensure information about Californians remains here in California.” The law prohibits state and local agencies from sharing ALPR data with federal or out-of-state authorities, precisely because once the data leaves California, the state loses any oversight over how it’s used. Yet, as Bonta alleged in the lawsuit, El Cajon “has knowingly and repeatedly refused to comply with state law, jeopardizing the privacy and safety of individuals in its community.”
The lawsuit details how El Cajon’s police department has been sharing ALPR data with law enforcement agencies in at least 23 states, including Texas, Florida, Georgia, Utah, Wisconsin, and Virginia. These are places where policies on immigrants and reproductive rights differ sharply from California’s, raising the stakes for vulnerable populations. Privacy and immigrant rights groups have long sounded the alarm about the risks: once license plate data enters federal databases, agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol can use it to track and identify individuals for deportation. “That risk,” Bonta argued, “undermines trust between law enforcement and immigrant residents.”
El Cajon’s Mayor Bill Wells, however, has pushed back hard against the state’s claims. Calling the lawsuit an “overreach of power,” Wells insisted, “We’re a sovereign city and we’re acting within the law.” He defended the city’s practice of sharing data with other states, arguing that it’s a two-way street: “They also give us information about potential bad guys who have come to El Cajon. The crime doesn’t stop at the border. We have people from other states all the time that we’ve arrested as a result of this (technology).” He also dismissed privacy concerns as “ludicrous,” stating, “We don’t share information with ICE … and we don’t have cameras on Planned Parenthood. We’re not doing that. It seems ridiculous that they would want to take away a legitimate law enforcement tool for a liberal fantasy.”
But the lawsuit and the facts on the ground suggest the problem is not isolated to El Cajon. According to Local News Pasadena, Pasadena’s own police department operates 78 ALPR cameras at 19 locations, with additional cameras approved for installation in 2025. While Pasadena PD has repeatedly assured the City Council and its Community Police Oversight Commission that its ALPR data is not being shared with federal or out-of-state agencies, evidence tells a more complicated story. Data from Pasadena is accessible to a sprawling network of 303 municipal, county, college, and tribal police agencies—including El Cajon PD and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, which itself was previously found to have unlawfully shared license plate data with ICE.
Moreover, public records obtained in late 2022 revealed that Pasadena’s ALPR data, via vendor Motorola Solutions, had been shared with federal agencies such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and IRS Criminal Investigations. Out-of-state law enforcement agencies, from Houston Police in Texas to Kutztown Borough Police in Pennsylvania, have also accessed Pasadena’s plate detections. This sprawling access is partly due to the data-sharing design of ALPR systems, which are intended to help combat crimes that cross jurisdictional lines. But as critics point out, this technical convenience has effectively turned California’s ALPR network into a national resource—despite SB 34’s prohibitions.
California’s civil liberties groups have documented widespread noncompliance with SB 34. In 2023 alone, 71 law enforcement agencies were found to have violated the law, and dozens more—including Pasadena PD—either refused to stop sharing data or did not respond to questions about their practices. The Pasadena Police Department’s own ALPR policy is notably vague, stating that data “may be shared only with other law enforcement or prosecutorial agencies for official law enforcement purposes or as otherwise permitted by law,” but making no explicit mention of SB 34’s ban on out-of-state or federal sharing. The policy even lists “homeland security” and “electronic surveillance” as legitimate uses for ALPR data, raising further questions about oversight.
The stakes of this legal and policy battle have only intensified in recent months. Bonta’s crackdown on El Cajon came just as Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed Senate Bill 274, which would have imposed stricter regulations on ALPR technology—such as requiring data deletion within 60 days and mandating random audits. Newsom sided with law enforcement groups who argued that such measures could hinder criminal investigations, leaving the current, looser regulatory regime in place for now.
As the lawsuit moves forward, it’s clear that the outcome will have repercussions far beyond El Cajon. The case could set a precedent for how California’s 300-plus police agencies handle the powerful surveillance tools at their disposal and whether the privacy protections enshrined in SB 34 can withstand the push and pull of inter-jurisdictional law enforcement cooperation. For now, the debate continues to pit the imperatives of public safety against the fundamental rights to privacy and due process—raising questions that will likely echo in city halls and courtrooms across the state for years to come.
Whatever the outcome in court, the controversy has already forced a reckoning over how much trust Californians can place in their own laws—and in the assurances of those tasked with enforcing them.
