ST. GEORGE — Since last fall, the St. George Police Department has been experimenting with a crime-fighting tool that is now being implemented moving forward. While law enforcement says this tool is a great help, some advocacy groups have expressed concerns about privacy and the potential abuse.

The tool in question? Automated license plate readers.

“So the St. George Police Department decided there’s a very large gap in how we’re handling and responding and solving some crimes (and) we felt like this tool could help us,” St. George Police Sgt. Travis Willinger recently told St. George News.

And, he said, the help has been immense, as it has aided in solving cases involving missing persons and kidnappings, vehicle thefts, store burglaries and the apprehension of wanted suspects.

“If I can be completely honest with you, it has helped us immensely in solving crimes and helping victims get the justice that they’re deserving of in some of those cases,” Willinger said. “So it’s been a great tool so far.”

The use of automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, as they are commonly known among law enforcement, is nothing new. Moreover, their application in the private sector is extensive as they are used by businesses and private entities like gas stations, car washes and hospitals. A local example Willinger named was St. George Regional Hospital, which uses these plate readers for parking lot enforcement.

Data collected by the readers – particularly the locations of where drivers originally come from and the times they drove through – may also be sold to companies for targeted marketing purposes.

“So the technology is out there and it’s being used every single day in ways that people don’t even realize that it’s being used,” Willinger said.

Presently, the St. George Police Department has eight readers posted at traffic “choke points” across the city. These readers are from Vigilant Solution, a subsidiary of Motorola – one of the country’s primary automated license plate reader vendors – and were used as part of the department’s tests. They will soon be replaced by a newer system of cameras purchased from Motorola.

While these plate readers have been placed along high-traffic roads, Willinger noted they are not being used to enforce traffic laws.

“The beautiful part about it is the cameras that we’re using, they are not used for traffic enforcement at all,” he said.

How it works and a local example

Someone could be driving with an expired license or no insurance and that wouldn’t ping the system, Willinger said. Instead, if a plate number pops up on a national database of active incidents or investigations, also known as a “hot list,” officers are notified a suspect vehicle passed through a certain part of town at a certain time.

The national database that the automated license plate readers St. George Police use tie into the National Crime Information Center, which is maintained by the FBI. The database serves as a tool for law enforcement agencies to access information regarding criminal records, missing persons, stolen property and other data relevant to investigations.

Willinger reiterated that it is only when a plate number matches a case or warrant on the database that officers are able to respond. Again, it is not used for traffic enforcement, he said.

“As law enforcement, we cannot go into the system without a law enforcement purpose, meaning we have to have an active case in order to even go and look at the information that was collected,” he said. “So it’s not this big giant dragnet. And it’s not used to track people because unless you’re entered in the NCIC national database, we wouldn’t have a reason to have your plate flagged on an ALPR system.”

A specific case that Willinger said was solved through the use of plate readers was the robbery of the America First Credit Union in Harmons Grocery store on 700 South in November 2023. While the suspect, Andre Rogers of Henderson, Nevada, initially got away, he was arrested by U.S. Marshals in Nevada in February thanks, in part, to data collected through an automated license plate reader system.

Concerns of abuse, invasion of privacy and constitutionality

Advocacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation have expressed concerns over civil rights, privacy and the constitutionality of these systems. These concerns arise due to a lack of overarching federal regulations governing the general use of plate readers, the potential for abuse, and times a license may be misread and an innocent person becomes a suspect.

“The information captured by the readers – including the license plate number, and the date, time, and location of every scan – is being collected and sometimes pooled into regional sharing systems,” the ACLU states on its website. “As a result, enormous databases of innocent motorists’ location information are growing rapidly. This information is often retained for years or even indefinitely, with few or no restrictions to protect privacy rights.”

According to a 2022 policy memo from the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy, there have been some instances where police officers have misused the system “to get information on romantic partners, business associates, neighbors, journalists and others for reasons that have nothing to do with daily police work.”

The memo notes other examples where plate readers have been used “to target locations where people have a constitutional right to assemble, such as mosques and political rallies, or where they are engaging in legal activities, such as gun shows.”

Utah law and automated license plate readers

The plate reader system the St. George Police Department is using is subject to state law regarding its application.

As well, people generally do not expect privacy when out driving in public, Willinger said, adding that they can be photographed or filmed by anyone on the street corner as they pass by.

Willinger said that arguments that the plate readers violate the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution – which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government – do not apply.

Utah is among the states that regulate law enforcement and other governmental entities’ use of these license plate readers. The Automatic License Plate Reader System Act was passed by the Utah Legislature in 2013 and restricts the use of automated license plate readers by law enforcement and government entities in general unless certain criteria are met.

This involves active criminal investigations, such as apprehending someone with an outstanding warrant, locating a missing and endangered person and searching for stolen vehicles.

Additionally, a law agency must have a written policy in place outlining the use, management and auditing of the reader system it uses. The placement of any cameras on a state highway for collecting plate data must also be approved by the Utah Department of Transportation.

Other authorized uses include parking enforcement at government facilities, controlling access to secured areas, collecting an electronic toll fee and enforcing motor carrier laws. Utah’s Port of Entries is also equipped with plate readers for law enforcement purposes and to collect data to “improve supply chain efficiency or the efficiency of the movement of goods.”

Concerning how long a government agency keeps the data, state laws allow it to be preserved for up to nine months under specific circumstances. Otherwise, the data shall be destroyed “as soon as possible” and “in an unrecoverable manner.”

As for the misuse of data collected by the reader systems, the law also states that “a person who knowingly or intentionally uses, obtains, or discloses captured license plate data in violation of this part is guilty of a class B misdemeanor.”

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2024, all rights reserved.