Los Angeles County imposes restrictions on license plate readers, citing CalMatters

from Phoebe Huss and Harry JohnsonCalMatters

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Drivers in Los Angeles County have a powerful new privacy advocate after the Board of Supervisors pushed to limit how their license plates are scanned by law enforcement.

The board recently voted to ask the sheriff’s department to more closely regulate the use of license plate data it collects through high-tech camera systems mounted on patrol cars and over roads. The measure he approved cited reporting by CalMatters that roughly a dozen police and sheriff’s departments throughout Southern California share such data with federal immigration agencies.

September movement requires the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which operates independently of supervisors, to conduct annual privacy training for deputies with access to license plate cameras and that the data not be used for noncriminal immigration enforcement.

It also requires the department to delete plate observations after 60 days unless flagged criminal lists.

The sheriff’s department “welcomes” the proposal and plans to review its practices and policies, the department told CalMatters. Under the proposal, deputies must report changes to their license plate reading policy to the county by January. it told the Los Angeles Times last month that works with 931 automated readers.

Depending on the outcome of that report and whether Sheriff Robert Luna decides to follow the board’s direction, said Supervisor Hilda Solis, who was the lead author of the legislation, supervisors may take further action to further regulate license plate readers in Los Angeles

The sheriff’s department told CalMatters it has no “current” arrangements to share license plate data with federal agencies. A California law enacted in 2015 forbids the sharing of plate data with outside and federal entities and requires agencies that use plate readers to have a use and privacy policy for them.

Many of the provisions in the Los Angeles County proposal mirror those in some national legislation vetoed by the governor earlier this month. This measure, Senate Bill 274, seek to prevent misuse of license plate data by limiting the lists of license plates that law enforcement can track and by requiring police to describe a specific case or task force use when using camera data.

Solis said she submitted her proposal in part because she wanted to publicly support SB 274 before Newsom decided on it.

CalMatters did not find that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department shared data with ICE or the Border Patrol, but some agencies in the Los Angeles area did. The Los Angeles Police Department declined to comment when asked about such sharing.

License plate readers “remain a powerful investigative tool for recovering stolen vehicles, identifying felony suspects and locating missing persons,” watchdogs wrote in September a letter urging the governor to sign SB 274 into law. But “its public support depends on the assurance that the sensitive location data it generates will never be repurposed for impermissible civil immigration enforcement.”

Board President Kathryn Barger voted “no” against approving SB 274. Barger did not approve of the proposed limit on the time frame that law enforcement can keep license plate data.

Barger told CalMatters that she believes that time limit would endanger the public and make it harder for police to solve crimes, and that she supports Newsom’s veto. Newsom also opposed a 60-day data retention limit in the state bill, citing similar reasons.

But this is the same storage period for registration number data followed by The California Highway Patrol and last year they called from the governor’s office 28-day retention period balances public safety and privacy.

“When so many of our neighbors live in fear, sharing sensitive data only increases the risks.”

Eunice Hernandez, Los Angeles City Council Member

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has made immigration issues a priority by expediting license plate movement and another requesting a progress report on using new state laws to protect schools from ICE raids.

The county proposal does not apply to police departments like the LAPD, as they are run by local city councils. The Los Angeles City Council acquired about $400,000 license plate reader technology for the LAPD since June.

Two members of the Los Angeles City Council, Eunisses Hernández and Hugo Soto-Martínez, have consistently voted against the use of license plate readers by the police department, citing concerns about their use by immigration authorities.

“At a time when so many of our neighbors live in fear, sharing sensitive data only increases risks and undermines trust,” Hernandez wrote in a statement to CalMatters.

Law enforcement agencies using automatic license plate readers across the state continue to break the law.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the El Cajon Police Department earlier this month for violating state law. A KPBS report earlier this month found that this includes federal agencies like ICE. The General Prosecutor’s Office has also sent letters to 18 agencies across the country by 2024 for potential violations of state law.

After a CalMatters report in June, a follow-up report from Palo Alto Online and the San Francisco Standard found that police departments in the Atherton, Menlo Parkand San Francisco violated state law. As a result of that report, last month Jennifer Wall, a city council member in the Bay Area city of Woodside, summoned the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office to be more transparent about how deputies conclude that searches included in quarterly reports to the council are consistent with local politics.

When municipalities use automated technology to read license plates, “we have to make sure it’s used appropriately and (have) mechanisms to ensure it’s used appropriately,” she told CalMatters. “There needs to be accountability for how they are used.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.