Arizona’s Department of Public Saftey has 25 new license plate scanners and are using them quite aggressively. The Arizona Republic reports that the technology makes finding stolen vehicles and amber alert suspects easier, but there are many concerned about the handling of the data collected.
Currently they have have kept all of the data collected including vehicles that have nothing to do with crimes. Arizona legislation to control how quickly data is purged has been not been successful as of yet.
In a state that routinely ranks among the top five in the U.S. in auto theft, DPS scanned more than 1.6 million plates since introducing its first cameras in 2006 – leading directly to 122 felony arrests.
Callister, a DPS Border Crimes Unit officer, uses a set of the agency’s 25 plate-reader cameras to track stolen vehicles south of Phoenix. He said the system supplements everyday police work, freeing him from the routine checks that used to consume his time.
“Three years ago, all I had in my car was a radio to talk to a dispatcher, and I had to wait my turn,” Callister said. “If I was lucky, I could run 10 vehicles a day,” he said. “Now, with the plate reader and my computer, I’ve had days when I’ve read over 8,000.”
later in the article:
Plate-readers might be a boon for investigators, but agencies such as DPS already have grappled with the possibility of public resistance from those who fear the technology threatens the civil rights of law-abiding citizens. Of the thousands of license plates scanned each day, only a small fraction of the vehicles are tied to some possible criminal activity.
DPS, working with statewide task forces, could emerge as the central agency to store the data from the scans – but the agency has yet to establish guidelines on how to use the data and how long that information would be saved.
“That’s where some people might consider it an invasion of privacy,” Callister said, but he downplayed the idea, saying the plates are public information seen on public streets.
“This database is just a big pile of plates and GPS locations,” he said, adding that the potential to solve crimes outweighs privacy concerns. “If somebody is involved in a bank robbery, or kidnaps a kid, and they do have a plate, they can go back to see the vehicle was at a (specific) location.”
Cmdr. Larry Scarber, who oversees the DPS plate-reader program, said information from the cameras is used strictly to prevent crime.
“We have to be very cautious,” Scarber said of the records of vehicle locations. “Right now, we haven’t gotten rid of anything.”
via: Arizona Republic.
The article also lists which Arizona communities also have license scanning systems.
