As I wrote in my comment the court did add a caveat that could limit how broadly this precedence gets applied. But at the end of the day:

1) The police did use ALPR data without a warrant.

2) The court upheld the use of ALPR data without a warrant in this case.

How widely this will get applied remains to be seen.

The court did not say that a warrant would be required had Yang not been in a rental car, which is what people seem to be implying.

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etchalon 24 minutes ago | parent [-]

... There is nothing waiting to be seen.

The court ruled, as hundreds of cases have been ruled before, that Fourth Amendment protections only apply if there is an expectation of privacy. Its opinion made clear that they were ignoring whether warrantless use of APLR data is a Fourth Amendment issue because you can't have a Fourth Amendment issue if there is no expectation of privacy and there can be no expectation of privacy in a rental vehicle outside your rental period.

It didn't uphold the use of the data. It said it didn't need to address the use of the data, because it was a moot point.

This is like arguing with someone that a court didn't say Dragons couldn't be charged with a crime because the court only said Dragons aren't real.

Please stop doubling down.

	▲	Manuel_D 12 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The fact that the court decided that the defendant didn't have an expectation of privacy is exactly what's relevant here. Whether that lack of privacy extends to people in the vehicles that they own themselves is what remains to be seen. Since Flock records people in public, it's hard to see how one would argue that they have an expectation of privacy operating vehicles on public roads. At the end of the day, the police did use ALPR data without a warrant and the court did uphold that use. > It didn't uphold the use of the data. It said it didn't need to address the use of the data, because it was a moot point. Yes it did uphold the use of the data, on the grounds that the defendant didn't have an expectation of privacy driving a rental vehicle. You're writing as though it's certain that the court wouldn't have permitted that had Yang owned the vehicle, rather than renting it, but that's not in the decision.