U.S.: Digital License Plates and the Deal That Never Had a Chance

Citing the EFF blog:

In 2022, [Electronic Frontier Foundation] EFF fought along with other privacy groups, domestic violence organizations, and LGBTQ+ rights organizations in the U.S. to prevent the use of GPS-enabled technology in digital license plates. A.B. 984, authored by State Assembly member Lori Wilson and sponsored by digital license plate company Reviver, originally would have allowed for GPS trackers to be placed in the digital license plates of personal vehicles.

As we have said many times, location data is very sensitive information, because where we go can also reveal things we’d rather keep private even from others in our household. Ultimately, advocates struck a deal with the author to prohibit location tracking in passenger cars, and this troubling flaw was removed. Governor Newsom signed A.B. 984 into law.

Now, not even two years later, the state’s digital license plate vendor, Reviver, and Assemblymember Wilson have filed A.B. 3138, which directly undoes the deal from 2022 and explicitly calls for location tracking in digital license plates for passenger cars.