The American Civil Liberties Union raised concerns with a key legislator Wednesday over some police departments’ use of license plate scanning technology to retain and share massive amounts of data on ordinary, law-abiding citizens. However, that lawmaker – Rep. Gerald Fox III, co-chairman of the legislative judiciary committee – expressed doubt that a bill will be passed to deal with the emerging phenomenon this year.
“I met with the ACLU today…and they gave me some more information that was interesting,” Fox, a Stamford Democrat, said in a phone interview late in the day. “I am learning about it. Other legislators are learning about it. … But, given the short [legislative] session” – which ends May 9 – “I don’t know that we’re going to be doing anything on it this year.”
The use by some police departments of license plate-scanning devices was reported on The Courant’s front page Wednesday—in a story that said 10 Connecticut police departments pooled their scans to create a database with more than 3.1 million records of more than 1.3 million vehicles since October 2009. An ACLU staff attorney said letting the police keep the data indefinitely, and to search it whenever they want, is “like retroactive surveillance without probable cause.” The scanning database was first reported by the associated Press Tuesday.
Fox said he saw Wednesday’s story and noted that it said New Hampshire has banned the license plate scanners and Maine sets a three-week limit on retaining the data. Police have argued that when the database is used to search for stolen cars or expired registrations, most citizens don’t show up in the search because their registrations are up to date and they haven’t stolen a car.
“I am interested to hear what our local police are saying, as well,” Fox said. “I thought the [Courant] story today was helpful.”
The judiciary committee already has a lot on its agenda, he said, adding that while it’s helpful to start the discussion about the plate scanners, “I don’t know if it’s going to be one of the first things we’ll be doing. … But it’s something I’m interested in learning more about.”
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11 Responses to Key Lawmaker Doubtful On Bill Concerning License Plate Scanners
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Just Another example of the man trying to keep a brother down….. Big brother is lurking everywhere
Are we to understand then that Mr. Gerald Fox III considers our civil liberties a mere inconvenience to be considered “interesting” versus the big brother mentality of some police chiefs? These scanners are not merely passive devices. They actively screen all registrations that the police car passes. The retention of this data makes a database of innocent people’s activity, just in case someone does something wrong and needs to be retroactively tracked. Perhaps the good Mr. Gerald Fox III would like to tattoo numbers on our wrists or foreheads to make things a little more efficient?
I’m confused. Registration information is a govt. record that police have access to anytime anyway and they don’t need probable cause or reasonable suspicion to access it. People have to expectation of privacy with regards to their registration information. Another reason why, as I have said so many times before, the ACLU has ceased to be relevant, they are willing to take up any cause regardless of it’s validity.
Rob: access to your registration information is much different than compiling a database about your every move.
Correction to my first post: people have “no” expectation of privacy with regards to their reg info.
Simple solution to this.
FOIA the police department databases, look for the legislative plates in them, and publish where and when our politicians have been.
I have to agree with the ACLU on this one. Any information obtained about law-abiding citizens should be dumped and made inaccessible to anyone. To do otherwise smacks of the ‘papers’ required in Communist countries, used to track movements of citizens.
They should take this up this is to much big brother. They until May 9th to get it done they should do it thats is what they get paid for. I believe that once they scane my plate on the shows that my is registered and not stolen then the info should be dropped. Why should the police record where and when I go anywhere. Not that I am doing anythung wrong but it anit right and we should stop it they have until the 9th of May they needed to there job and pass a bill.
not sure why my post disappeared – it wasn’t out of line with any policy that I’m aware of except perhaps it was a little too conservative.
I agree with the ACLU on this issue. Further, any information obtained about honest, law abiding citizens should IMMEDIATELY be dumped, erased, removed and/or destroyed. This type of tracking of people reminds one of the ‘papers’ required in communist countries and should be an abomination to freedom-loving people.
>Correction to my first post: people have
>“no” expectation of privacy with regards
>to their reg info.
That’s an old fashion, and sort of quaint, view of the world.
There is a deeply fundamental difference between the police being able to observe and spot-check a registration in public at any time, and the police compiling a permanent database of every time it was seen by an automated system.
Often we confine our thoughts of these systems to the police, and to other governmental systems — the cameras at toll plazas that backstop EZ-Pass systems, or proposed for “Open Road Tolling” or the cameras now located at many intersections to control lights…or the soon to be red light and speeding cameras here in Connecticut.
But there is nothing to stop such data collection from being setup by gas stations — a fairly trivial upgrade to security systems in place.
Are you K-Mart and wish to figure out whose shopping at Walmart? Rent a store front across the street from the entrance and record who comes and goes and how much time they spend.
Own an auto dealership? Think of the marketing opportunities if you set up a camera and checked license plates against a database of cars passing in front of your dealership everyday; maybe even cross reference it with public records collected by the police and private records like those I mentioned Kmart could collect to build up a demographic profile of your customers. “Hey, this person passes my dealership everyday, the police database shows they’re often at the soccer fields when the cruiser pulls in to wave at the kids playing soccer on Tuesdays, they’ve owned the car for four years, they like to shop at XYZ stores, they use Shell gasoline…I bet we could target them with an offer for a new minivan with a $1000 Shell gas card thrown in as a spiff!”
And that scenario is the POSITIVE side of this technology. We won’t talk about the dark side.
Now expand this beyond just license plates.
Have you ever posted a pic in Facebook and had it tag your friends names automagically in the pic? Or used the Image Search features of Google today?
Now think of those ubiquitous surveillance cameras in stores today. It wouldn’t take much to tweak them just a bit — swipe a debit or credit card once to capture your name, they can now associate your face into their “Guest ID” (as Target calls it) so in the future even when paying by cash they can recognize their customers.
Again, the *good* side is you get special offers. The dark side is rampant potential for abuse by the Government, stalkers, and jilted ex lovers out to harm you.
Our society’s need for strong privacy legislation, including strict controls on how long images of public things like license plates and faces can be retained (never mind associated and analyzed), is very pressing.
This is something our General Assembly, like the other states and Congress, is already at least 20 years behind the technology in addressing with rational policies.
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