In a rare demonstration of division between two of California’s otherwise closely-aligned Democrats, Governor Gavin Newsom on October 1 vetoed State Senator Sabrina Cervantes’ bill aimed at limiting the use and retention of information gleaned by license plate readers.
A license plate reader, variously known as an automated license plate recognition system and their respective acronyms LPR and ALPR, consists of a camera and accompanying software used to automatically capture photos of vehicle license plates. The accompanying software system, which is coordinated to link up with various data storage and processing banks utilized by law enforcement and other agencies, converts the images to electronic text, which then can be compared with or matched to license plate numbers registered with the California Department of Motor Vehicles or the vehicle registrations gleaned from other states’ information banks.
The readers, mounted on poles along roadsides or at intersections, generally make a recording of the plate number, date, time, and location of the vehicle bearing the plate.
Police agencies have applied the information in multiple contexts to identify stolen vehicles or track the whereabouts of individuals known or suspected to have engaged in criminal activity.
While the devices have proven of substantial value in documenting certain crimes, locating suspects and stolen vehicles, providing evidence that has been used in obtaining convictions, the data collected by an ALPR is routinely stored and provides a comprehensive record of vehicle movements and the whereabouts of the state’s citizens, the vast majority of whom are not involved in criminal activity.
Civil libertarians had concerns that the lack of regulation with regard to the use of the systems and the data they provided could be an intrusion into the privacy of citizens and that it could be used for untoward purposes unrelated to legitimate law enforcement efforts. Over the years that the readers have been in use, some agencies or employees of some agencies have shared the images captured with other entities, there was no effort to keep track of who had access to the data, no monitoring of the system use was in place, there were no uniform standards from agency to agency with regard to the systems’ and data’s use, there were no specific restrictions on the sale of the data and no plans for the erasure of the data or the time limits on maintaining it.
Moreover, among the state’s Democratic politicians opposed to the aggressive illegal alien deportation policy of the Donald Trump Administration there was concern that the data was or could be passed along to the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to collar those in the country illegally.
Cervantes introduced the legislation, Senate Bill 274, which called for agencies using the automated license plate readers to intensify safeguards pertaining to employee access and use of the systems. The legislation, if passed, would have required law enforcement commanders overseeing the employment of the equipment be sensitized to the civil liberties issues inherent in that use, mandated that annual audits be carried out by the Department of Justice with regard to their use and placed retention limits on ALPR data of 60 days, with exceptions that included license plate data from known stolen vehicles, data tied to vehicles involved in suspected criminal activity and data relating to cars on toll roads being preserved.
Cervantes argued that license plate readers represented “a powerful surveillance technology that can invade the privacy of all individuals and violate the rights of entire communities.” She said the collected “data can form an intimate picture of a driver’s activities and even deter First Amendment-protected activities. This kind of targeted tracking threatens to chill fundamental freedoms of speech.”
Predictably, the California Public Defenders Association and Surveillance Technology Oversight Project supported Cervantes’ bill, while the California Police Chiefs Association and police unions across the state were opposed to it.
In vetoing SB 274, which in September passed in the Assembly by a vote of 41-to-29 and in the Senate 28-to-6, Governor Newsom said, “I appreciate the author’s intent to prevent information regarding a person’s whereabouts from falling into the wrong hands. Nevertheless, this measure does not strike the delicate balance between protecting individual privacy and ensuring public safety. For example, it may not be apparent, particularly with respect to cold cases, that license plate data is needed to solve a crime until after the 60-day retention period has elapsed. Conversely, restrictions on inter-agency data sharing may impair solving crimes in real time, such as highway shootings, where the suspect may be rapidly crossing jurisdictional boundaries. Further, by restricting law enforcement agencies’ use of ALPR information only for locating persons or vehicles suspected of involvement in crimes, this bill would prevent the use of this information to locate missing persons.”
-Mark Gutglueck