License plate readersAs law enforcement increases use of license plate readers, privacy advocates fret

Law enforcement agencies across the country have adopted license plate readers (LPRs) to monitor vehicles driving on roads and to locate wanted suspects or suspended drivers. The Drug Enforcement Administration launched its LPR system in 2008 and to date it has “verified defendant statements, tracked fugitives, solved a gang related homicide, identified vehicles involved in vehicular homicide … identified the routes and methods used to transport drugs and weapons.” In 2010 alone, DEA LPR queries led to $80.6 million in cash seizures. The agency also lets other law enforcement units search through its database, according to information obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union through a Freedom of Information Act request.

After canceling plans last year to operate its own LPR database, DHS announced last week, through a bid request, that the agency’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is seeking a private sector firm to provide access to already functioning LPR databases for a subscription fee (see “DHS seeking license plate readers (LPRs) technology – again,” HSNW, 7 April 2015). The agency’s privacy impact assessment concluded that privacy and civil liberty protections would be in place under the proposal.

“The updated solicitation issued by ICE seeks to provide its law enforcement personnel with access to a previously established private sector run and managed license plate database that is already being used by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies across the United States,” spokeswoman Marsha Catron said last week. “ICE neither seeks to build a database nor collect or store bulk license plate reader data.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that police officers in Washington County, Pennsylvania gather license plate information, tagged with vehicle times and locations, into a database in North Strabane which receives roughly two million vehicle numbers annually, including data from Pittsburgh and surrounding suburbs. While the database can instantly alert officers in a squad car if a passing car is stolen or owned by a fugitive, for every criminal apprehended, tens of thousands of vehicles associated with no crime are being recorded into a database that can hold records for up to five years.

Privacy advocates argue that the gains made with LPR systems do not justify the mass monitoring of Americans who drive. Plates are “a tool that was created at a time when cars were started by cranking a handle, and clearly intended to identify a vehicle in specific circumstances when the vehicle was doing something wrong,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst for privacy issues with the ACLU. “But now that has combined with technology to allow the government to track all vehicles.”

Washington County District Attorney Eugene Vittone counters that the safety improvements enabled by LPR data outweigh general privacy concerns. “If you’ve got a plate (number), and a robbery, or God forbid a child abduction, wouldn’t it be useful to have that information?” he asked.