A proposal to install license plate-reading cameras on Los Angeles streetlights will face scrutiny Tuesday as a City Council committee weighs privacy concerns surrounding a three-month pilot program.
The five-member Public Safety Committee will consider an agreement with Axon Enterprise for a no-cost initiative that would place automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, on city streetlights.
Under the proposal, cameras would be clamped to the tops of streetlights and draw power from the lights’ electrical connections, according to Ubicquia Inc., a subcontractor that would install the cameras.
The committee is taking up the matter after the City Council voted Oct. 6 to assert jurisdiction over a September decision by the Board of Police Commissioners approving the pilot program.
The Los Angeles Police Department uses automated license plate reader technology to identify stolen vehicles and vehicles associated with wanted suspects. Axon Enterprise and Motorola Solutions provide ALPR technology or related services to the department.
Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez sought to bring the matter before the council for further review, citing concerns about privacy and data collection policies.
LAPD Chief Information Officer Dean Gialamas, who also serves as commanding officer of the department’s Information Technology Bureau, told council members that ALPRs are primarily used to collect vehicle and license plate information. He emphasized that the technology does not include facial recognition, biometric identification, audio recording or analytics focused on identifying people.
“It’s a test of technology to see whether it suits the needs of the department as well as the needs of the communities who are asking for them,” Gialamas said, referring to the pilot program.
Gialamas said the Axon contract would serve as a template for future ALPR vendors. He added that the department had updated its data-retention and data-sharing policies to strengthen civil liberties and privacy protections.
The LAPD’s updated policy would be implemented at the same time as the pilot program.
Changes to the department’s ALPR policy include:
— Prohibiting unauthorized secondary use and unauthorized sharing of information while preserving city ownership of the data;
— Restricting access to captured data to certain officers and reducing the period during which officers can access the ALPR system;
— Limiting data sharing to certain law enforcement agencies, including police departments in Torrance, Huntington Park, Hayward, Signal Hill, Simi Valley, La Mesa, Glendale, Alhambra, West Covina and Livermore, as well as sheriff’s departments in Los Angeles, Madera and San Luis Obispo counties, among others;
— Adjusting the frequency of audits; and
— Requiring officers authorized to access the system to obtain supervisory approval and complete online video training and a test.
LAPD Cmdr. Randy Goddard, assistant commanding officer of the department’s Information Technology Bureau, said officials need to understand the full capabilities of the ALPR technology.
“The vendor (Axon) is dramatically adjusting the back end of their user interface and the data that we can pull to do inspections and do audits and look for anomalies,” Goddard said. “So what this pilot gives us is the opportunity to start this process to work with the vendor to make the technology better, so there is more oversight and accountability, to make sure it’s being used in the appropriate way.”
Soto-Martinez argued that the department should establish its policies before testing the technology.
“I disagree. I think the policy is more important that practicing, without this body describing what they want to see,” Soto-Martinez said.
“I just believe that the oversight and policy needs to be put first, and then the vendor should be able to meet that or we find anther vendor,” the councilman added.
Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez agreed with Soto-Martinez’s concerns.
“I’ve seen pilots turn into permanent programs without it ever coming back to us. To hear that this pilot is moving forward without the strong regulations and guardrails that are necessary,” Hernandez said.
Council members said the use of ALPRs raises significant public concerns, citing cases in which officers in other states have used the technology to stalk former romantic partners and investigate women seeking reproductive health services outside their home communities.
They also cited incidents in which partial or incorrect data led law enforcement officers to conduct aggressive stops of people who were not suspected of crimes.
In September, the Board of Police Commissioners approved a new 10-year, $235 million contract with Axon. The company is expected to provide more than 1,600 patrol-car cameras with automated license plate reader technology, along with thousands of replacement body-worn cameras, Tasers, cloud storage for video footage and artificial intelligence features that would generate initial drafts of police reports from body-worn camera recordings.
In July, the Board of Police Commissioners suspended the LAPD’s use of ALPR technology provided by Flock Safety, citing concerns about data collection and retention.
The LAPD’s three-year contract with Flock expired that month, although officials have said they are working on a new agreement that would better define and enforce data-security and privacy protections.
The decision followed an audit by the LAPD’s Office of the Inspector General concerning the department’s use of ALPR technology.
The audit found that LAPD officers had improperly investigated 161 people whose vehicles were incorrectly flagged as stolen in the ALPR system.