Sponsors (9)
Bars federal funds for purchasing/operating automated camera systems and associated components and requires decommissioning within 180 days, with narrow border and toll exceptions.
Official title: To prohibit the use of Federal funds for covered camera systems and associated components, and for other purposes.
Introduced September 2, 2026 by Thomas Massie · Last progress September 2, 2026
The bill prioritizes privacy by blocking federal funding for mass-surveillance camera systems (while preserving narrow border exceptions and toll operations), but shifts significant fiscal, operational, and procurement burdens onto state, local, and tribal governments and may reduce some law-enforcement capabilities.
State, local, tribal residents and taxpayers will face reduced federal-funded mass-surveillance camera deployment because federal funds cannot be used to buy or maintain such systems, limiting government collection of biometric and location data on ordinary people.
Border and federal law-enforcement agencies retain the ability to use surveillance systems near the northern and southern borders for interdiction, preserving targeted national-security and border-control operations.
State and local transportation agencies can continue operating toll collection systems because the bill confines 23 U.S.C. §104(b) restrictions to toll collection only, allowing existing toll-processing of vehicle/license data for billing to continue.
Local, state, and tribal governments and taxpayers will face substantial near-term fiscal costs because recipients must decommission federally funded automated license-plate readers/facial cameras within 180 days, reimburse the Treasury for prior spending on banned systems before getting future funds, and potentially pay to replace systems or transition to alternatives.
Law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve will lose federally funded surveillance capabilities outside designated border zones, potentially reducing investigative capacity and public-safety effectiveness in some jurisdictions.
State, local, and federal IT purchasers and contractors could face disrupted contracts and abrupt procurement changes because the bill's broad definition of 'associated component' (including algorithms, cloud services, and networks) may force rapid termination or rework of many IT and data-service agreements.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Prohibits federal agencies and any recipients of federal funds from using those funds to buy, lease, install, operate, or maintain certain automated camera systems and related hardware, software, or services that capture and process images (including license-plate or biometric data) using automated techniques. Recipients and agencies must stop operating covered systems purchased with federal money and decommission or cease supporting them within 180 days of enactment, subject to limited narrow exceptions for CBP border systems and certain toll-collection uses. Defines key terms including “covered camera system,” “associated component,” and “biometric data,” and requires recipients who unlawfully spent federal funds on these systems to reimburse the Treasury before receiving more program funds. The measure broadly targets automated image-capture and automated image-processing systems that extract or infer personal or vehicle identification data and transmit it to remote storage or analytics services.