SACRAMENTO, Calif. (May 30, 2019) – Yesterday, the California Assembly passed a bill that would limit the storage and sharing of automatic license plate reader (ALPR) data. Passage of the bill would also place significant roadblocks in the way of a federal program using states to help track the location of millions of everyday people through pictures of their license plates.
Asm. Edwin Chau (D-Monterey Park) introduced Assembly Bill 1782 (AB1782) in February. Under the proposed law, an ALPR operator would have to include in their use policy a procedure to ensure the destruction of all nonanonymized ALPR information no more than 60 days from the date of collection. Police could only retain ALPR data beyond 60 days if it is being used as evidence or for the investigation of a felony.
On May 29, the Assembly passed AB1782 by a 49-18 vote.
Current law does not put a strict time limit on the retention of data and does not include any anonymization requirement.
Final passage of AB1782 would drastically limit the license plate data stored in California and would ensure the destruction or anonymization of most information.
would make it highly unlikely that such data would end up in federal databases and disseminated through federal fusion centers.
IMPACT ON FEDERAL PROGRAMS
As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the federal government, via the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), tracks the location of millions of vehicles through data provided by ALPRs operated on a state and local level. They’ve engaged in this for nearly a decade, all without a warrant, or even public notice of the policy.
State and local law enforcement agencies operate most of these tracking systems, paid for by federal grant money. The DEA then taps into the local database to track the whereabouts of millions of people – for the “crime” of driving – without having to operate a huge network itself.
ALPRs can scan, capture and record thousands of license plates every minute and store them in massive databases, along with date, time and location information.
Records obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) through open records requests encompassed information compiled by 200 law enforcement agencies that utilize ALPRs. The data revealed more than 2.5 billion license plate scans in just two years (2016 and 2017).
Perhaps more concerning, this gigantic sample of license plate scans reveals that 99.5 percent of this data was collected regardless of whether the vehicle or its owner were suspected of being involved in criminal activity. On average, agencies share this data with a minimum of 160 other agencies. In some cases, agencies share this data with as many as 800 other agencies.
Police generally configure ALPRs to store the photograph, the license plate number, and the date, time, and location of a vehicle’s license plate, which is bad enough. But according to records obtained by the ACLU via a Freedom of Information Act request, these systems also capture photographs of drivers and their passengers.
With the FBI rolling out a nationwide facial-recognition program in the fall of 2014, and the federal government building a giant biometric database with pictures provided by the states and corporate friends, the feds can potentially access stored photographs of drivers and passengers, along with detailed data revealing their location and activities. With this kind of information, government agents can easily find individuals without warrants or oversight, for any reason whatsoever.
Since a majority of federal license plate tracking data comes from state and local law enforcement, laws banning or even restricting ALPR use are essential. As more states pass such laws, the end result becomes more clear. No data equals no federal license plate tracking program.
Passage of AB1782 would represent a good first step toward putting a big dent in federal plans to continue location tracking and expanding its facial recognition program. The less data that states make available to the federal government, the less ability it has to track people in Massachusetts, and elsewhere.
WHAT’S NEXT
AB1782 will not move to the Senate for further consideration. At the time of this report, it had not been referred to a Senate committee.
