SurveillanceDHS drops plans for national license-plate database

DHS has recalled its solicitation for a bid looking for a private company to create a national license-plate database which would provide the department with unlimited access to information obtained from commercial and law enforcement license plate readers (LPRs). DHS intended to use the database to track fugitive undocumented immigrants and others sought by law enforcement. The Washington Post reported that database could have contained more than one billion records, raising privacy concerns and questions about the safeguards which would be used to protect innocent citizens.

DHS’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said that the database would only be accessed in relation to ongoing criminal investigations or to locate wanted individuals. “It is important to note that this database would be run by a commercial enterprise and the data would be collected and stored by the commercial enterprise, not the government,” Christensen said of the bid before its recall.

Across the country, law enforcement and private firms, including vehicle repossession companies, are storing information obtained from LPRs. “The technology in use today basically replaces an old analog function — your eyeballs,” said Chris Metaxas, chief executive officer of DRN, a subsidiary of Vigilant Solutions, which operates one of the largest warehouses of license plate data in the country. “It’s the same thing as a guy holding his head out the window, looking down the block and writing license plate numbers down and comparing them against a list. The technology just makes things better and more productive.”

The Washington Post reports that ICE has used Vigilant’s National Vehicle Location Service (NVLS), which holds more than 1.8 billion records. According to a 9 January 2012 DHS document obtained by the ACLU, the NVLS once helped ICE arrest 100 individuals in a six-month period. Some of the cases that resulted in arrests were thought to be cold cases.

Catherine Crump, an ACLU lawyer, welcomed DHS’s decision tos withdraw its solicitation, but she is still concerned at why the proposal was introduced to begin with. “While we are heartened that it looks as though the plan is off the table for now; it is still unexplained why the proposal was put forward and why it has been withdrawn,” Crump said.

Christensen said the bid solicitation was posted without awareness of ICE leadership “While we continue to support a range of technologies to help meet our law enforcement mission, this solicitation will be reviewed to ensure the path forward appropriately meets our operational needs,” Christensen said.

States are passing laws to limit the use of LPRs, or restrict the storage of data captured by LPRs. Maryland is considering a law which would prohibit non-government deployment of LPRs and regulate LPR usage by government agencies. Utah prohibits commercial companies from using automated high speed cameras to photography license plates.