Arizona residents trying to fight traffic tickets could have another tool at their disposal.

This week, Attorney General Mark Brnovich issued an opinion saying third-party operators of traffic enforcement or “red light” cameras need to be licensed as private investigators. It goes against a previous attorney general’s opinion from Terry Goddard in 2010.

Redflex, which contracts with Arizona law enforcement, is reviewing the opinion but says the company does not plan to change operations at this time.

In a statement, a company spokesperson said this most recent interpretation by Brnovich "departs from prior interpretation of the same law and is contrary to the interpretation of every other state that has interpreted similar laws."

But Ryan Cummings with R&R Law Group, which specializes in defending clients charged with traffic violations, said this opinion is welcome news because photo enforcement operators need more oversight.

“We get clients all the time that the citation was written to a male driver and it’s very clearly a female in the photograph, which tells us that absolutely nobody looked at this before that citation got sent out," Cummings said.

He said not to expect a challenge immediately, since that would require someone to cite the opinion in a photo radar hearing and then likely pursue the case.

"It becomes a very high mountain in order to get this up to a court of appeals and to get it up even higher than that," Cummings said. He added that his attorneys are familiarizing themselves with the opinion and may use it as part of their clients' defense in future cases.

A bill under consideration in the state legislature would ban photo enforcement cameras from state highways. Another advanced this session sought to ban the cameras outright.