Gibbs Mura, alongside co-counsel Hausfeld LLP, has filed a class action lawsuit against Axon Enterprise, Inc., alleging the company’s AI-powered automated license plate reader (ALPR) network unlawfully collects, stores, and aggregates the location data of millions of California drivers. The lawsuit was filed on November 3, 2026, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, on behalf of plaintiffs from Daly City and Palm Desert, as well as a proposed class of California drivers.
What Does the Axon Lawsuit Allege?
Axon, best known for supplying TASER devices and body cameras to police departments, has rapidly expanded into license plate surveillance. According to the complaint, Axon operates well over 1,000 cameras in California, including fixed cameras in high-traffic areas and cameras mounted on patrol vehicles that constantly capture and document plates and locations of surrounding vehicles. The complaint alleges that Axon pitches itself to police departments as an ethical alternative to Flock, yet it fails to meet even the minimum standards California law sets for ALPR operators.
The complaint describes a surveillance network that is practically impossible to avoid: drivers who steer clear of Axon’s fixed cameras are still scanned by Axon cameras mounted on police cruisers. The lawsuit alleges that Axon’s software uses artificial intelligence to extract license plate numbers along with vehicle color, make, and body type, and can also detect people in camera footage. For example, according to the complaint, the Fremont Police Department’s mobile Axon ALPR cameras captured nearly 5 million plate reads over a 90-day period. Axon’s platform can also tap into privately owned doorbell cameras, and police can search the combined data without a warrant and share it across jurisdictions, according to the complaint.
Californians have a right to know who is collecting their license plate data and how it is used, according to the lawsuit—which says that Axon violated California’s ALPR Privacy Act (SB 34) because it has no ALPR usage and privacy policy at all, even though the Act requires every ALPR operator to implement one and post it online. Such policies are supposed to explain to Californians how their license plate data is being collected, used, shared and retained. Axon’s lack of transparency is especially troubling given documented police misuse of license plate readers: the complaint cites at least 75 reported incidents of law enforcement personnel allegedly using license plate readers to stalk romantic partners, exes, or strangers. The complaint also alleges that Axon violated Californians’ right to privacy under the California Constitution by aggregating drivers’ location and movement data over time and intruding upon their seclusion through round-the-clock surveillance of their movements.
“Keeping communities safe does not entail a blank check to companies tracking the public,” said David Berger, partner at Gibbs Mura, who is co-leading the case. “Every scan adds to a record of where Californians live, work, worship and seek medical care. We filed this class action lawsuit to hold Axon accountable for unlawfully collecting and storing information about millions of California drivers through its license plate reader network. People have a right to know who is tracking their movements and what is being done with that information.”
The lawsuit seeks actual or liquidated damages of at least $2,500 per violation, punitive damages, and a court order stopping Axon’s alleged unlawful practices.
Drive in California? Visit our Axon License Plate Reader Class Action Lawsuit page or call our team at 888-841-8506.
Gibbs Mura Is a Leader in License Plate Reader Privacy Litigation
The Axon case is Gibbs Mura’s third lawsuit challenging automated license plate reader surveillance in California. The firm previously filed a class action against Flock Safety in February 2026 over the alleged sharing of Californians’ license plate data with out-of-state and federal agencies, and is litigating a separate case against Motorola Solutions and its subsidiary Vigilant.
Gibbs Mura has also prosecuted some of the largest and most influential privacy and data breach cases in the country. In 2025, Gibbs Mura secured a $27.5 million settlement against Thomson Reuters, in a lawsuit alleging its CLEAR platform violated millions of Californians’ privacy. Gibbs Mura also helped achieve the largest data breach settlement in history in the Equifax Data Breach Lawsuit, securing $1.5 billion from Equifax after its 2017 data breach exposed the data of over 145 million Americans.
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