Capture Any Team License Plate Reader Near US World Cup Stadium

From June 11, soccer fans will fill North American stadiums to watch FIFA World Cup. Those who drive to matches in the United States may also find themselves being watched: WIRED identified 1,181 license plate recognition cameras, or ALPRs, within five miles of the 11 US stadiums hosting this summer’s World Cup. Most of those cameras are made by Protection of the Sheep.

ALPRs are installed along roads by municipalities, businesses, schools, and private groups such as home owners’ associations to continuously record the license plates of every vehicle that passes by. A market research report prepared by the United States Department of Homeland Security says that some service providers may collect other information such as the make, model, and year of the vehicle and a description of the sticker. Teams using these camera networks can query the logs to find comparisons of other plates, creating a record of where the vehicle has been and when. Flock Safety, in particular, allows users to share their data with other groups on their network, meaning that depending on the driver, drivers can be caught accidentally in the national network.

Flock Safety spokeswoman Paris Lewbel acknowledged that the company works with government agencies and “other clients” in areas around World Cup venues. Lewbel emphasized that Flock’s customers, not just Flock, “have control over what they know, deciding if, when, and with whom to share it.”

Andrew Elvish, VP of global sales for Genetec, which sells ALPR software, says that the Canadian company is focused on helping organizations manage vehicles and does not want to provide excessive access to data aggregated license plate data, which he says is a practice that people are rightfully worried about.

ALPRs are powerful surveillance and harassment tools: Police have been accused of using them to target them. stalk exes and strangers. In 2025, US Customs and Border Protection was found guilty of violating federal law by obtaining Flock’s driver information and the Illinois secretary of state, who. he said it was “a flagrant violation of state law.” Public employees are also mentioned accessible cameras inside the children’s gym and other areas as part of marketing, according to 404 Media. (In a blog post(Flock Safety stated that the employees were not “child spies” and were “well-intentioned employees who obtain the cameras with the express permission of the city, as part of their job.”)

Lewbel, the Flock spokesman, says the company is “aware of very little abuse,” adding that Flock Safety has no relationship with DHS, including CBP, and that agencies outside of Illinois must say they are complying with Illinois law before accessing Illinois information.

Tracey Ades, Genetec’s chief marketing officer, says the company strives to make its equipment as safe as possible, but at the end of the day it’s a tool for their customers to use. “So the need for laws to limit what people can do?” says Ades. “This should be carefully considered.”

Across the US, communities are starting to push back against the deployment of ALPR and fight for transparency. Activists obtain audit logs that show which licenses were searched and why, and compile them into database search. Many cities have to be terminated contracts, and teams are planning a national week against ALPRs in August. WIRED relied on data from one volunteer project, DeFlock, to determine where ALPRs were near World Cup stadiums in the US. Since the data is populated, it may not be a complete picture of ALPRs in a given area.