Virginia lawmakers considering regulating police use of automated license plate readers

State lawmakers are debating whether to regulate law enforcement departments’ use of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR). They heard constituents’ perspectives on the technology and reviewed studies from the Virginia State Crime Commission at a meeting in Richmond on Thursday.

ALPRs are typically mounted cameras (but can also be dashboard cameras) that capture a photograph or video clip of a vehicle and its license plate along with the location, date and time of the capture. The technology has grown in popularity across the country in both public and private sector use — from homeowner associations and businesses to law enforcement agencies.

In Thursday’s presentation, the commission’s deputy director Colin Drabert outlined a study and feedback from unnamed “stakeholders.” Their responses, he said, reflected that there are numerous benefits as well as concerns surrounding law enforcement using the technology.

“Few rigorous studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of ALPR,” he said. “However, the studies that have been conducted have shown that ALPR is particularly effective in assisting law enforcement with locating stolen vehicles and investigating other offenses.”

He also noted the stakeholders’ concern that camera placement in minority communities “would result in disparate impacts to the residents of those communities.”

The Department of Criminal Justice Services is in the process of determining how many Virginia law enforcement agencies are already using ALPR — information that will be available “in the near future,” Drabert said.

At least 18 states currently regulate the use of ALPRs and 17 of them also regulate the length of time that law enforcement can retain data. For instance, New Hampshire allows for three minutes while Alabama allows for up to five years. Several states range from a few weeks to a few months.

Though law enforcement agencies can share data with other public and private entities that use ALPR, Drabert stressed multiple times that ALPR alone does not reveal people’s identities. He said that law enforcement has to access separate databases to determine who owns a vehicle that was flagged by the technology.

Drabert explained that law enforcement that uses ALPR receives alerts for “hot list” features like stolen vehicles or license plates, vehicles associated with people known to be potentially engaged in criminal activity and vehicles associated with missing people.

Charlottesville police chief Michael Kochis made a case for using ALPRs during public comment and said that some community members in his community had been asking for them.

He said that “people whose homes were being shot up on a weekly basis” kept asking “when are we going to get it?”

In September, Charlottesville’s city council approved the installation of Flock Safety Cameras — a leading ALPR company in America — following a series of community meetings that garnered mixed feedback from residents.

But common concerns that have emerged in Virginia and nationwide amid the rise in ALPR use have been privacy and prevention of unreasonable searches and seizures by governments.

Norfolk residents recently filed a federal lawsuit challenging the use of Flock cameras, alleging that they violate people’s Fourth Amendment rights — which protect against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Drabert noted cases where ALPR use resulted in erroneous searches, such as when a mother and children in Colorado were held at gunpoint after being wrongly suspected of being in a stolen car.

Legal Aid Justice Center attorney Ruby Cherian asked lawmakers to consider “guardrails” for law enforcements’ use of the technology.

“Officers should be required to get a warrant to search the database to protect privacy rights and prevent misuse and abuse,” she said.

Del. Wren Williams, R-Patrick, asked if a 30-day limit on data storage would be reasonable. Cherian agreed, though she said she’d like to see a shorter cutoff.

The crime commission will meet again on Dec. 16, when Del. Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria, said some decisions can be made on how to move forward with potential regulations. After Thursday’s meeting, Herring said that she wants to read through documents stemming from the presentation and analyze other information and cases regarding ALPR use.

“I think something needs to be in place,” she said.