Subscribe To Our Newsletter
Subscribe To Our Newsletter
A proposed class action lawsuit (Rojas et al. v. Motorola Solutions, Inc.) has been filed against Motorola Solutions, Inc., alleging severe violations of California’s Automated License Plate Reader Privacy Act.
The lawsuit claims that Motorola indiscriminately logs the locations of millions of drivers and illegally shares their precise movement data with out-of-state and federal agencies without consent.
The 21-page complaint, Rojas et al. v. Motorola Solutions, Inc., was filed on May 27, 2026. The legal action outlines how Motorola’s high-speed surveillance cameras continuously scan roads, university campuses, and parking lots, assembling deep location histories on everyday people. For Californians, the lawsuit represents a critical pushback against invasive mass monitoring, claiming that Motorola has consistently ignored state statutory safeguards designed to prevent local driver tracking from falling into the hands of federal immigration enforcement and out-of-state entities.
As tech corporations build increasingly profitable surveillance networks, consumer advocacy groups argue that the public’s right to basic privacy must be defended. The lawsuit aims to hold companies accountable when corporate data collection tramples on state protections, ensuring that individual civil liberties are safeguarded against unchecked tracking.
To understand the scope of the privacy concerns, it helps to examine how Motorola’s automated tracking technology operates. Motorola Solutions manufactures and operates advanced, high-speed ALPR cameras capable of capturing driver data at speeds of up to 150 miles per hour, even in complete darkness.
These cameras are deployed indiscriminately across high-volume roadways, retail zones, parking facilities, and educational institutions throughout California. Rather than targeting specific individuals suspected of criminal activity, the systems are built to photograph and log every single vehicle that passes through their field of view. The hardware captures the precise vehicle make, model, license plate number, GPS coordinates, exact timestamps, and even high-resolution images of the drivers and passengers inside the vehicle.
The lawsuit notes that the information harvested by these cameras is fed directly into a massive centralized platform known as the Vigilant VehicleManager database. Motorola supplements these location logs with artificial intelligence tools capable of analyzing data against a historical archive spanning more than 17 years. This system builds detailed historical travel maps for individual vehicles, which Motorola then markets to commercial clients and law enforcement agencies to “flag vehicles of interest” and forecast where a driver might travel in the future.
The unchecked aggregation of location history carries significant societal risks that extend far beyond a simple snapshot of a license plate. Civil liberties groups have long warned that continuous vehicular tracking can reveal deeply intimate details about an individual’s daily life, habits, and beliefs.
According to data tracking analyses referenced in the litigation, prolonged access to an individual’s historical driving routes allows operators to draw clear inferences about a person’s life. By matching timestamps and GPS points, an automated database can chart an individual’s religious observances, political activities, medical treatments, personal relationships, and even marital fidelity.
The lawsuit highlights specific named plaintiffs, including California residents Michelle Rojas and Marissa Barriga, who drove daily past Motorola-operated ALPR cameras positioned near the entrance of the University of California, Merced, throughout 2025 and 2026. The complaint notes that because the systems record everyone indiscriminately—including students, facility workers, and casual commuters who merely drive by or park nearby—everyday people are placed under permanent surveillance without any baseline suspicion of wrongdoing or explicit personal consent.
The core legal argument in the case rests on a specific, powerful California privacy statute. The California Automated License Plate Reader Privacy Act, which originally took effect in 2016, establishes a strict regulatory framework governing both system operators and the end-users who access ALPR databases.
Under this California law, the rules regarding driver location data are clear:
Strict Sharing Prohibitions: Public agencies and operators are explicitly forbidden from selling, sharing, or transferring ALPR data to any entity outside of California state and local law enforcement. The statute intentionally excludes federal agencies and out-of-state police from accessing local driver profiles.
Mandatory Security Standards: Operators must maintain robust administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to prevent data from being exposed to unauthorized users or leaked to the open internet.
Conspicuous Privacy Policies: Companies operating these networks must implement and publicly post a transparent usage and privacy policy detailing exactly why the data is being collected and who has access to it.
The lawsuit alleges that Motorola Solutions has systematically violated these statutory mandates. Most notably, an April 2026 audit revealed that local data managed via Motorola’s systems was actively being shared with various federal agencies, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP), IRS Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the United States Secret Service. The plaintiffs contend that this illegal data pipeline directly bypasses California’s sanctuary policies and state privacy boundaries.
Beyond the allegations of intentional data sharing with federal immigration and enforcement agencies, the lawsuit paints a troubling picture of Motorola’s internal security practices. The complaint alleges that the company has failed to maintain the reasonable technical safeguards required by law, leaving sensitive public movement records vulnerable to unauthorized access.
The litigation points to a series of high-profile security warnings and investigative discoveries over the last two years. In June 2024, the federal Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an official advisory regarding critical vulnerabilities embedded in Motorola’s ALPR hardware. The advisory warned that technical flaws could allow outside attackers to tamper with the physical devices and gain direct access to the collected data logs.
Compounding these infrastructure fears, the lawsuit cites a January 2025 discovery by an independent security researcher. The researcher revealed that real-time video streams and raw analytical data coming directly from Motorola’s active ALPR systems could be viewed openly on the public internet without requiring any form of user login, password, or security authentication. The complaint argues that these lapses represent a gross failure of corporate accountability, leaving the public exposed to stalking, tracking, and harassment by bad actors.
If you are a driver who has traveled on California roadways or parked in monitored areas, you may be eligible to be included in this class action investigation. The lawsuit seeks to represent a nationwide class composed of all individuals whose license plate numbers or associated vehicle identification data were captured by Motorola through its California-based ALPR cameras during the applicable statute of limitations period.
For everyday people looking to protect their civil liberties, participating in a class action means you don’t stand alone against a major tech corporation. Because California’s ALPR statute provides for statutory damages of $2,500 per individual violation without requiring proof of direct financial loss or identity theft, the potential liabilities for non-compliant corporations are immense.
In the initial stages of class action filings, there is no requirement to manually sign up or pay out-of-pocket fees. If the court certifies the case as a class action and achieves a final settlement or judgment, individuals who meet the class criteria will automatically be included and will receive a formal notification detailing how to claim their portion of the statutory damages or benefit from court-ordered privacy changes.
As the litigation moves forward in the court system, documenting your daily routines and paying attention to where security cameras are positioned can be helpful if you frequent monitored areas like university campuses, public parking lots, or major commercial retail centers in California.
To explore your legal options or stay informed about the progress of this privacy case, you can connect with an experienced attorney who specializes in data privacy and consumer protection law. Firms like Gibbs Mura are actively investigating corporate compliance surrounding automated tracking technologies to defend the public’s right to move freely without unlawful surveillance.
Consulting a consumer protection professional regarding active privacy investigations carries absolutely no cost or obligation to reach out. By understanding the laws designed to shield your personal information, you can take a meaningful step toward holding tech giants accountable and reclaiming your right to privacy on public roads.
New cases and investigations, settlement deadlines, and news straight to your inbox.
