ALAMEDA, Calif. (KRON) - License plate readers are coming to an East Bay city not known for having a lot of crime.
The chief of police in that city says the technology will help officers stop the people who are committing crimes, as opposed to those who are not.
The Alameda Police Department currently has license plate reader technology in use on a limited amount of patrol vehicles.
Alameda will be expanding automated license plate readers to fixed locations throughout the city including the Webster Street Tube, Park Street Bridge, Fruitvale Bridge, High Street Bridge, Doolittle/Bay Farm Bridge, and the Ron Cowan Parkway.
“This is mass surveillance. We will be capturing every single license plate and holding it in a database for everyone that comes in and out of our city,” John Knox White said.
Alameda City Council member John Knox White is one of the two council members that voted against the technology.
"I think we have a lot of data. Whether we are looking at our neighboring cities or all of the studies that have been done around license plate readers that show they are not going to have an effect on bringing the crime rate down,” White said.
“We have an opportunity to access technology that helps us focus on the correct vehicles, rather than similar vehicles,” Chief Nishant Joshi said.
Eliminating stops of vehicles that were not used in crimes is one of the key reasons behind why Alameda Police Chief Nishant Joshi recommended that the city council move forward with fixed license plate readers.
“Well-intentioned stops can result in that footprint that I am not trying to put on the community. Anytime we stop somebody that's intrusive. Anytime we stop the wrong person, that's offensive. So, here I have technology that we can leverage to identify the specific vehicle,” Chief Joshi said.
“While I didn't support the license plate readers themselves, I was one of the councilmembers who really pushed that the city council is going to adopt clear policies about their use ahead of time,” White said.
Chief Joshi is proposing a reduction in retaining the information from the current 6-months duration to 90-days. The chief's outlook on letting the federal government access the data?
"I am not going have this technology be used for immigration enforcement,” Chief Joshi said.
City officials estimate the license plate readers will be up and running by the end of the year or early 2023.
from KRON4 https://ift.tt/cDKpN26
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