Half Moon Bay plans for license plate readers

“As a pilot, I am for the program. I cannot say I want ALPRs in my town for the rest of the millennium. I can say it’s worth a two-year pilot program,” she said. “This is not big brother looking into your personal information. There are real strict clear limits on how the information is garnered.” 

Sheriff’s Capt. Rebecca Albin, chief of Police Services for the Half Moon Bay Police Bureau, said ALPR data has a 30-day retention period, does not record faces or any personal information and cannot be used to enforce another state’s laws or immigration laws and is not stored by third-party databases. 

Mayor Joaquin Jimenez and Vice Mayor Harvey Rarback both voted against the technology, which collects data on all passing cars but only uses it if the vehicle has been involved in a crime, because they felt it was unnecessary. 

Rarback suggested that the COPS grant funding would be better utilized on other projects, like school resource officers or traffic deputies, while Jimenez voiced concern about the technology being accidentally used to pull over the wrong people. 

“Vehicles do change hands. If a vehicle is reported to be in a crime, robbery, shooting, hit-and-run, and the vehicle within a month is sold or is being driven by a different person, the person driving the vehicle will be responsible. And that is my concern,” Jimenez said. 

It’s possible that ALPR technology could be used to accidentally stop the wrong individuals, Albin said, but she noted that pulling over an incorrect car happens in a small percentage of cases regardless of if the technology is used. 

Palo Alto police Capt. James Reifschneider spoke at the meeting about Palo Alto’s own ALPR use, which has been live since summer 2023. 

From anecdotal evidence, ALPR technology has helped the department solve a number of crimes, including stolen vehicles, robberies and residential burglary in Palo Alto. Even in cases when a stolen vehicle was not successfully stopped, altering criminals to a town’s usage of ALPR can be a success, Reifschneider said. 

“We deter them from offending in Palo Alto by finding them soon after their arrival in town, they see us, they leave, they don’t have a chance to offend,” he said. 

Palo Alto also has a surveillance use ordinance in place and ALPR technology was required to fit within those boundaries, Reifschneider said, something that Half Moon Bay could potentially pursue as well. 

“I think what I’ve taken away, we need to explore whether or not we should have our own surveillance use ordinance,” City Manager Matthew Chidester said. “I like the idea of having a written process for how we evaluate, when and how we share data and I liked what I heard about [the] quality control process.” 

Meeting attendees spoke both for and against the ordinance, with one, Kimberly Williams, voicing concern that personal information could easily be gleaned from ALPR-collected information like car registration. 

“There are a lot of things, from a tag, a police officer or any other person can learn about you as an individual,” she said. “That’s troubling to me, although I don’t know how we can avoid that in the way that we’re tracked today.” 

The way ALPR data is searched can be audited and anyone using it improperly could face criminal charges, Albin emphasized throughout the meeting. 

Staff will draw up a contract with Flock Safety — an ALPR company used by other cities in San Mateo County — and return to the City Council for final approval, Chidester said. 

holly@smdailyjournal.com

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