California Attorney General Rob Bonta is turning up the heat on El Cajon, asking a San Diego judge this week to order the city to stop handing automatic license plate reader data to agencies beyond California’s borders. The motion seeks a writ of mandamus, sets a San Diego Superior Court hearing for Feb. 13, and cites state filings that say the city’s ALPR network has been queried nationwide and logged hundreds of thousands of vehicle reads in recent weeks.
State Seeks Court Order To Shut Down Out‑Of‑State Access
In a press release, the California Department of Justice said Bonta filed the motion on Wednesday, asking a judge to declare El Cajon’s data‑sharing practices unlawful and to require the city and its police chief to stop sending ALPR information to agencies outside California, according to the Department of Justice. The filing seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, including a writ of mandamus, as the state looks to enforce its privacy laws in court. Local reporting has found that El Cajon’s system collects information on a large scale, capturing hundreds of thousands of plate reads each month that can then be queried by other agencies, according to KPBS.
El Cajon Stands Firm Behind Its License Plate Cameras
El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells told NBC 7 San Diego that the city shares ALPR data "as a law enforcement tool" and will not stop unless a judge orders it to. He said the system has helped investigators crack serious crimes and blasted the state’s move as political grandstanding. City officials and the police department maintain that cross‑jurisdictional access is key for public safety work, including investigations that stretch across multiple states.
Why Privacy Advocates Are Sounding The Alarm
Privacy and immigrant‑rights groups warn that ALPR records can effectively map people’s movements and, once sent across state lines, could be used in immigration enforcement or in other ways beyond California’s oversight, according to reporting by KPBS. The legal foundation for those worries traces back to SB 34, a 2015 law that treats ALPR information as personal data and restricts how it can be shared, as detailed by CalMatters. Protesters have been gathering regularly outside El Cajon City Council meetings, keeping public pressure on local leaders while the legal fight plays out.
What Happens Next
The DOJ says it first raised compliance concerns with El Cajon in August 2024 and followed up again in August 2025. A DOJ spokesperson told NBC 7 San Diego that the office sent letters to 20 cities statewide and that 19 worked with the department to come into compliance while one did not. The state is now asking the court to bar El Cajon from sharing ALPR data outside California, and the case is scheduled for a Feb. 13 hearing in San Diego Superior Court. That showdown follows an earlier October lawsuit, when Bonta sued El Cajon in October, and the new motion brings the dispute back before a judge.
Legal Stakes For Data And Police Tech
At the center of the case is whether SB 34 gives California enough legal muscle over ALPR information to stop cross‑border sharing, and whether courts will use a writ of mandamus to enforce that duty. SB 34 was enacted in 2015 to regulate automatic license plate reader systems and limit where their data can go; see the statute as published on LegiScan. The DOJ’s motion spells out the enforcement approach it wants the courts to endorse, and if the judge finds a clear statutory duty to keep this data in check, the ruling could force El Cajon and other agencies to significantly curb outside access to their ALPR databases.
