#alpr data

[trackthepolice]

Weekly Roundup of ALPR Stories - March 22

Minnesota: There was big news this week in license plate reader data as the State classified the data as private in an opinion issued by the Commissioner.  Both the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press covered the change to what data is now private and what is public.

However, this isn't the end of the story. The Minnesota legislator is still at work on the license plate controversy. In particular, an amendment passed a key House committee that would eliminate or  the storage of "non-hit" license plates and limit the retention time of the data.

Regardless, it is unlikely that the public will be able to request ALPR data  in the near future to continue updated Tracking of Police license plate movements. This blog may take a slightly different approach to Tracking the Police in upcoming months. Stay Tuned!

[trackthepolice]

This slide from a 2011 Minneapolis Police Department presentation reveals a bit more about ALPR scanners than what we had previously known.  This unredacted version shows the location of one of the stationary cameras on the Broadway Bridge between North and NE Minneapolis. The MPD refuses to disclose the location of the stationary cameras yet this document clearly reveals the location of two more of the cameras.

In other words, Broadway Avenue Bridge and Plymouth Ave Bridge are the two known locations of the stationary cameras.

Another interesting aspect of this document is that you can see in the bottom corner that the ALPR readers have a total of 27,865 "hits" or vehicles that are active on some list or another.  That's a very long hot list of "wanted" vehicles! 

[trackthepolice]

Weekly Roundup of ALPR Stories March 1st #TrackthePolice

Georgia: Sometimes even local government's purchase ALPR cameras. Sadly, the City Council of Holly Springs, Georgia approved the purchase of four ALPR cameras.  The police state is everywhere :-/

New Jersey: Homeland Security is also funding ALPR readers for Emerson, NJ according to this recent article.  In many of the articles, shared on this blog, DHS is a common funding source for these expensive readers.

Texas: Dallas will be installing the license plate reader technology this Spring in its police squad cars. According to this article, there is debate over how long the data may be kept and if it should be kept on non-hit vehicles. Interestingly, the article mentions how the "fusion center" may have access to this data in Dallas.

Utah: The debate over the data retention policy on license plate readers is also a hot item in Utah. In this case, the bill requires the data be deleted after 6 months, which for many, still seems like too long a time to keep the data.

[trackthepolice]

Track the Police cited as one reason the City of Mpls can't keep ALPR data public??

Track the Police appears to be one reason the City of Minneapolis cites that license plate reader data cannot remain public. A request was made to  IPAD (Information Policy Analysis Division) for a copy of the public application on the reasons why the City of Minneapolis suddenly wants all the license plate reader data classified as private.

From the report:

A recently created blog tracks movements of police and law enforcement personnel vehicles: http://trackthepolice.tumblr.com. The owner of that site welcomes submissions of ALPR data from anywhere in the country where ALPR systems are being used and states, "If they want to watch us, we'll watch them back."

Full copy of the City of Minneapolis application for ALPR data reclassification now posted online here.