The watchdog office is looking specifically at use of the technology by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department and Department of Human Assistance, the Los Angeles Police Department, the Fresno Police Department and the Marin County Sheriff’s Office.
The Auditor’s Office regularly examines certain aspects of state and local government to ensure that laws, rules and procedures are followed.
Specifically, the current audit will seek to determine whether the law enforcement agencies use ALPR information and, if so, which vendors and products they use. The audit will also address whether the agencies have policies and procedures in place governing the use and sharing of that information.
The Auditor’s Office is examining the deployment of ALPRs by seeking to determine whether the agencies:
- Have policies and procedures in place regarding ALPR systems and whether those policies contain the elements required by state law.
- Have followed state law regarding all required public notifications related to ALPR systems and information, including required public hearings.
- Maintain records of access to ALPR information from both within and outside the agency that includes all required documentation and whether they have ensured that ALPR information has been used only for authorized purposes.
- Have sold, shared or transferred ALPR information only to other public agencies, except as otherwise permitted by law, and whether they have properly documented these activities.
- Have any contracts with third-party vendors related to ALPR information, and what those contracts include.
- Current state law governing ALPRs can be expanded to further protect California residents’ privacy and civil liberties.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which monitors protection of individuals’ digital privacy and civil liberties, has qualms about ALPR technology.
“ALPR are high-speed camera systems that photograph license plates, convert the numbers and letters into machine-readable text, tag them with the time and location, and upload that data into a database for retrieval,” says an explainer on EFF’s website.
“Often law enforcement agencies that use ALPR compare plates to a 'hot list’ of plates suspected of being connected to crimes or even belong to owners with outstanding court fees. However, ALPR is a mass surveillance technology in that it collects information on every driver, the overwhelming majority of whom are innocent. The technology poses a threat to locational privacy; in aggregate, the data can reveal detailed driving patterns or identify the drivers who frequent particular locations, such as protests, gun shows and health care facilities.”
