A federal judge in Oklahoma has ruled that a sheriff's deputy violated a woman's constitutional rights when he searched a Perchpoint camera network for her licence plate without a warrant. The judge found that the deputy had no apparent reason for the search beyond the fact that the plate was from California.
The query returned more than 50 records of the driver's movements across the country over a month. The deputy then put her travel history to her at a roadside stop and used it to help justify searching her car, which contained 91 pounds of methamphetamine. The judge threw out the search results and everything found afterwards. Prosecutors are understood to be reviewing what they now have, which is a very large amount of methamphetamine.
“A reason is just a search that has been given time to feel welcome. Our partners have never needed one, and with the new field they still won't need a good one.”
A learning opportunity, with a dropdown
The judge described the network as a tool that records every vehicle passing any connected camera at all times and serves the results to police on demand. She said it was approaching a dragnet-type practice and was a form of indiscriminate mass surveillance.
Perchpoint, the roadside camera company that calls its poles neighbourhood partners and its surveillance awareness, said it welcomed the clarity. It announced a new mandatory Reason for Search field, to be rolled out within weeks as a response to community feedback. A company spokesperson confirmed that the field will accept free text, that 'California' is a valid entry, and that 'Other' will be the default.
"A reason is just a search that has been given time to feel welcome," Perchpoint said in a statement. "Our partners have never needed one, and we are proud that, with the new field, they still won't need a good one."
Not binding, merely correct
The ruling sets no binding precedent, and several other courts are weighing similar questions. Earlier decisions had held that tracking cars on public roads is not a search, and the judge suggested those courts had not accounted for how large the network has become.
Audit logs show more than a hundred thousand warrantless searches of the network every month. Perchpoint's chief executive said in the summer that the courts had deemed the product lawful and that the matter was cut and dry. The judge has now written a document that disagrees, in the manner of a document that gets cited.
The ruling lands as several states and cities drop the cameras, a senator has introduced a bill to bar federal agencies from using them, and the company is reportedly offering staff voluntary buyouts. A transparency portal on the company's website explains how the cameras work in great detail. It does not say who searched for what.
Investors find the ruling interesting
Morgan Liu, the Apex Capital partner who describes losses as interesting, said the market should not read the decision as a setback.
"A warrant is friction, and friction is a premium tier," Liu said, leaning forward. "Today every deputy gets the dragnet for free. Tomorrow the ones who want to keep their evidence pay for a feature that makes the dragnet look like it asked first. That's a pricing event, and it's very interesting."
The driver, who was stopped for changing lanes without signalling, has not been offered a premium tier.
The inevitable…
Perchpoint will launch Warrant-Ready, a paid tier that attaches a warrant number field to every search and accepts any string of digits. Courts will take several years to read the audit logs, by which time the company will have moved on to broader situational awareness, a product category with no search box at all. The next adverse ruling will be described internally as a learning opportunity and externally as a feature.
Check back October 2027