License plate readers to increase throughout county

San Mateo police spokesperson Officer Jerami Surratt said retail theft has been on the rise, particularly around areas like Hillsdale and Bridgepointe shopping centers, and the anticipated 15 additional plate readers will be instrumental in identifying and tracking suspected criminals. Currently, San Mateo has about 31 ALPRs stationed throughout the city, first implementing the program in 2020. 

“It’s a really good investigative tool to help us connect the dots, and that’s been across the board with every department that’s gotten the ALPRs … all it does is take the license plates. There’s no photograph of who’s driving the vehicle, no identification of the driver,” Surratt said, adding that it also assists not just with retail theft, but for more serious cases, like kidnapping or violent crimes.

There are only four law enforcement agencies within San Mateo County that do not use the technology, including Belmont. But during a meeting Tuesday, March 26, its City Council decided to move forward with an ALPR program, with a police staff report noting that the plate readers would provide much-needed assistance for the current force, particularly in light of a decline in officers.

Similar to San Mateo’s current policy, data would be stored only for 30 days — unless particular license plates are part of ongoing investigations — and license plate information could only be accessed in the event of specific crimes, which would need to be documented while conducting an ALPR search. 

But Jennifer Pinsof, staff attorney at Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the technology has been used in too many nefarious circumstances to be trusted as an effective crime-fighting tool. There are several local and state-level regulations in place, such as Senate Bill 34, to mitigate inappropriate data sharing. Police departments, for instance, are not supposed to share the license plate data with other states, nor with federal law enforcement agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That, however, hasn’t stopped at least 73 departments throughout California from violating those rules, Pinsof said.  

“We found that many California law enforcement agencies share this data not just out of state but specifically with agencies in states that ban abortions, and those law enforcement agencies who now have access to this highly sensitive location data can use it to prosecute things that are crimes within their state but not within the state of California,” she said. 

At least 10 violations occurred across several Bay Area cities and counties, including Contra Costa and Santa Clara-based agencies. In 2021, Marin County Sheriff Robert Doyle was sued after findings surfaced that his agency was providing ALPR data to hundreds of federal and out-state agencies, such as ICE and Customs and Border Protection.  Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a legal memo last year reiterating the ethical uses of ALPR data in response to both advocate concerns and law enforcement pushback, as the latter, in some cases, maintained their right to provide non-California agencies with the data.  

“Once a Texas law enforcement agency has this data, they can do whatever they want with it, whether that means prosecuting something that isn’t a crime in California or not abiding by the protections that we have in California,” Pinsof said. 

The controversy speaks to a more difficult needle to thread, one that simultaneously aims to solve crimes — which can include violent acts like homicide or sexual assault —  while also protecting individuals’ privacy. In his report to the City Council, Belmont Police Chief Ken Stenquist named several incidents in the last few years that would likely have been resolved had the ALPRs been in place. One of them included the kidnapping of a U.S. postal worker and another involved an individual with a stolen vehicle who had previously committed numerous violent crimes. 

Giuliano Carlini, a Belmont resident in attendance at the council meeting, said the technology has the ability to protect communities but additional safeguards are needed. 

“When the people you share it with share it with other people, who share it with other people, are they following the same policy? And what might surprise you isn’t when you’re sharing with other law enforcement agencies, but who’s the vendor? What are they doing with that data?” Carlini said to the council during the March 26 meeting. “I understand both sides of this, so keep asking these questions. It’s really important.”

alyse@smdailyjournal.com

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