Until now,
.
Although the
Because the entire system cost less than $100,000, a section in the city's municipal code allows the police department to get approval from the city manager or finance director. Therefore, the police department had no obligation to tell the
In this case, the department got approval from Finance Director
This technology allows cameras, attached to four police vehicles, to constantly take photos of every license plate they drive by and log the location, time and date of each vehicle. The data does not include individual names or addresses.
Once that data is uploaded to the database run by Vigilant Solutions, the
According to Vigilant Solutions, its database is "the largest (license plate reader) sharing network in
Those agencies include ICE, Customs and Border Protection,
The list also includes random law enforcement agencies all over
Locally, the
According to Capt.
"If they are part of the sharing agreement, they have access," he wrote in an email.
Thunberg noted that, due to maintenance issues, only two of the four vehicles retrofitted with license plate reader cameras have been active this year. So, the amount of data that
For example, the police department does not ask about someone's immigration status whenever people call for help, act as a witness to a crime or is arrested. The department also "does not engage in any form of enforcement of federal immigration laws," according to the city's website, which notes that these policies are "an integral part of CVPD's community policing philosophy."
Because the data is focused on license plates, not people,
This surveillance technology has been useful to the police department. Between January and November of this year, the license plate readers got 180 hits on vehicles of interest, meaning they were stolen or wanted in conjunction with a crime, Thunberg said.
In 2019, the cameras only got 55 hits. But two of the department's four cameras were down because of maintenance issues, he added.
In response to questions about its license plate reader surveillance program, Mayor
"This data is collected by nearly every city in our county, the state, and throughout
The mayor initially disputed claims that the
"The City does not have its own 'sharing agreement,' nor does it have 'its own list of agencies,'" she said.
However, Vigilant Solutions' own website seems to contradict the mayor's response.
Under a section of its website titled "Whose Data Is It Anyway," the company states that local law enforcement agencies "decide with whom their data is shared (all Public Safety, or on an agency-by-agency basis)."
When told of this contradiction, the mayor issued a follow-up statement through her chief of staff,
"When we contracted with Vigilant, CVPD opted to share with every law enforcement agency," Estrada wrote. "ICE and CBP are important because crimes and criminals cross the border and while we do not share information about a person's immigration status, we do work with federal law enforcement on drug interdiction, human trafficking, stolen vehicles and other crimes."
While Mayor Salas was generally aware of the city's use of license plate reader technology, she only learned of the city's involvement with Vigilant Solutions after a reporter from
Bilby, who approves hundreds of purchase orders each year, said he vaguely remembered the license plate reader program being discussed but doesn't remember it specifically with any level of detail or accuracy.
"The departments do not pitch anything to me when deciding on a purchase," Bilby wrote in an email. "Since it is their budget, they are allowed to spend it on what they feel is necessary. I don't have a say in how they spend their funds."
Department are required to follow procurement guidelines, and his staff review the requisition and approve if the department has followed those rules, Bilby added.
License plate readers and Vigilant Solutions' use of them have come under scrutiny in the past.
In 2019,
The audit noted that privacy advocates have raised concerns about law enforcement collecting and storing license plate reader images of individuals not suspected of crimes. The
Supporters of this technology say that images collected through license plate readers are collected in a public place where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.
The state audit reviewed four local law enforcement agencies — the
For example, 400,000 out of the 320 million images that the
In 2019, the
Over 9,000 ICE officers have access to Vigilant Solutions' system under a $6.1 million contract. The contract gave ICE access to over 5 billion data points of location information collected by law enforcement agencies, private businesses, insurance companies and parking lots, according to the report.
"The ACLU's grave concerns about the civil liberties risk of license plate readers take on greater urgency as this surveillance information fuels ICE's deportation machine," the ACLU wrote. "Together with time, date, and location coordinates, the information is stored for years, generating a literal and intimate roadmap of people's private lives."
Councilmembers Mike Diaz,
Councilwoman
"I am satisfied that our community will not be alarmed by the actual practices/use of the technology, which is intended to recover stolen vehicles and alert our officers of the presence of people suspected of personal or property crimes," she said.
(c)2020 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.