CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES — The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced plans to buy nationwide access to a network of license plate readers, issuing a Request for Proposals on May 14 for its Directorate of Intelligence. The agency said it intends to award contracts to one or more vendors capable of providing near real-time data from cameras across the United States and its territories.

"To evaluate and manage threats to personal safety, property, and law enforcement, the FBI requires professional service firms that can provide License Plate Readers (LPRs) for tracking subjects on roads and highways over the US and its territories," the FBI said in the solicitation. The winning bidder or bidders must provide law enforcement and commercial license plate reader data through the contractor's existing platform, with coverage of 75 percent of locations.

The system must allow searches by partial or full plate numbers, plate states, addresses, locations where a plate was scanned, and vehicle makes and models, and must offer queries by vehicle description, time and date, and geo-location. It must also generate search result notifications, share or create maps depicting camera coverage, and be accessible to FBI users via a website.

Contractors must identify the source of information, such as red-light cameras, repossession vendors, and speed cameras. The RFP also requires contractors to identify the location of servers where data is stored to verify compliance with state and local laws on license plate reader data.

The RFP divides the proposal into six regions covering the continental United States, Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The FBI said it may award contracts to one or two vendors in each region. Contracts can run up to five years, with a combined potential value of $36 million.

The FBI already runs a License Plate Reader program to facilitate LPR information sharing with and between its law enforcement partners, and maintains a hot list of vehicle data against which law enforcement agencies can compare their LPR data. The agency's intelligence division shares information with federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies.

Communities using Flock cameras may grant data access to federal agencies, but sharing is disabled by default. In March, Flock said it was defining a new relationship with federal law enforcement, including conditions to maintain local control over data sharing. "Flock data belongs to the agency that owns the cameras. There is no backdoor into Flock. Any access is explicitly permission-based and opt-in by the local agency," the company said.

California prohibits state and local agencies from sharing ALPR camera data with out-of-state or federal law enforcement agencies. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said in January 2024 that dozens of California law enforcement agencies violated the law by sharing ALPR information with out-of-state agencies. A Virginia law enacted last year imposes limits on sharing ALPR camera data with out-of-state or federal law enforcement agencies.