A lawsuit filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) challenging the use of Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) systems by a pair of Los Angeles law enforcement agencies is currently in a holding pattern on the County’s Superior Court docket.
Parties were scheduled to appear in court last week. However, the hearing was postponed to a later date. According to a representative from the EFF, another hearing scheduled for April will also be re-calendared, as the case is being reassigned to another judge.
It is not clear why the case is being reassigned.
Still, the ACLU’s Southern California branch and EFF have jointly sued the Los Angeles Police Dept. and the County Sheriff’s Dept. for failing to honor a public records request seeking how each law enforcement agency made use of the ALPR systems.
The EFF described the ALPR as a “sophisticated cameras mounted on squad cars and street poles that read license plates and record the time, date, and location a particular car was encountered.”
“Location-based information like license plate data can be very revealing,” an EFF statement continued. “By matching your car to a particular time, date and location, and then building a database of that information over time, law enforcement can learn where you work and live, what doctor you go to, which religious services you attend, and who your friends are. Given the sensitive nature of this data, EFF and ACLU-SC wanted further information on how the agencies were using the systems.”
The public records request was made in 2012, according to the EFF. While some documents and materials were provided, the actual data collected by the ALPR systems was reportedly withheld, leading to the filing of the lawsuit in the Los Angeles Superior Court.
In its opposition brief filed in advance of the scheduled March 21 hearing, lawyers for the LAPD and Sheriff’s Dept. stated the ACLU and EFF were “not entitled to the disclosure of ALPR data.”
“Records of investigation of crimes are absolutely exempt from the disclosure requirements of the California Public Records Act,” the opposition brief stated. “The public interest in investigating crimes such as vehicle theft, child abduction and murder far outweighs any interest the public may have in disclosure of these confidential materials.”
According to the law enforcement departments, the ALPR technology “is a computer-based system that utilizes special cameras to capture a color image as well as an infrared image of a license plate.”
The opposition brief also cited how ALPR technology helped lead to the identification and arrest of three people suspected of murdering a man in September 2013.
The ACLU and EFF filed its claim against the LAPD and Sheriff’s Dept. in May 2013.
According to the public records request attached to the lawsuit, the ACLU and EFF cited an LA Weekly article alleging the LAPD and Sheriff’s Dept. were the two largest collectors of data from ALPR systems, logging more than 160 million data points. The public records request, made in August 2012, the collection of the data points cited in the LA Weekly article was based upon the LAPD and Sheriff’s Dept. conducting an average of 22 scans of the more than seven million registered vehicle within Los Angeles County.
In its reply to the LAPD and Sheriff’s Dept. opposition, the ACLU and EFF argued “the accumulation of information merely because it might be useful in some unspecified case in the future certainly is not an ‘investigation’ within any reasonable meaning of the word.”
The reply included exhibits of the respective law enforcement branch’s response to the public records request.
The policies and procedures governing the Sheriff’s Department’s use of the ALPR stated there were “no written guidelines as to how to use the data” collected by the system.
“Keep in mind data is often used as a ‘lead’ to glean further information on an active investigation that law enforcement handles,” the policy entry continued.
Another key point of contention: privacy.
The ACLU and EFF contend use of the ALPR could, in extreme circumstances, lead law enforcement agencies perform surveillance on just about anyone and internally maintain any data collected for an indefinite period of time for the chance such information could become handy in a future – and unknown – investigation.
Interestingly enough, the Santa Monica City Council accepted nearly $800,000 in grant money from the Dept. of Homeland Security on March 25; part of the funding would be used to allow the local police department to purchase an ALPR system in an effort to help fight terrorism.
