LOS ANGELES, CA — The San Fernando Valley could soon be dotted with automatic license plate readers in response to recent crime waves plaguing the region.
Los Angeles City Councilman John Lee of the 12th District, which includes Northridge and Chatsworth, introduced a motion Tuesday to fund an automated license plate reader pilot program in the northwest San Fernando Valley.
If approved, the license plate readers would help the Los Angeles Police Department’s Devonshire Division to fight crime in the region.
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According to Lee, the LAPD’s Devonshire Division reported a 23 percent increase in burglaries last year and burglaries in the neighborhoods located north of Rinadli Street more than doubled.
“Certain communities within Council District 12 have been dealing with disproportionate increases in crime for many months now,” Lee said in a statement. “In consulting with our law enforcement partners and city agencies, we have collectively determined that utilizing ALPR cameras in our hardest hit communities will not only help us track down criminals but also deter criminal activities from occurring to begin with.”
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If the City Council approves the motion, city officials will begin identifying locations to install the cameras.
Lee is proposing $500,000 for the cameras.
LAPD Chief Michel Moore praised the plan.
“Technology is a crucial element in advancing the safety of Los Angeles, incorporating cutting-edge technologies,” he said. “I want to express my gratitude to Councilman Lee for his support and investment in ALPRs for the Los Angeles Police Department, which has already proven to be a successful initiative in other communities.”
The way the cameras work is that they record vehicle license plates as they pass by. The vehicle’s data is automatically entered into the department’s system and can be checked against “hot lists” for known suspect vehicles.
The goal is to identify vehicles that may be tied to crimes. Police recently credited the use of license plate readers to crack the case of a serial killer targeting homeless men in Los Angeles. In December, a Beverly Hills license plate reader helped investigators track the alleged get-away car of Jerrid Powell, who was arrested on suspicion of shooting and killing three homeless men as they slept in Los Angeles.
On Tuesday, investigators said they used license plate readers in a nationwide manhunt to help identify and track a man suspected of shooting and killing eight people in the Chicago area before fleeing to Texas where he shot himself in a confrontation with police.
License plate readers already posted around Los Angeles capture and store millions of images along with data about vehicle owners.
However, the vast majority of the images and data stored aren’t tied to known crimes, a state audit found in 2020.
“For example, at Los Angeles only 400,000 of the 320 million images it has accumulated over several years and stores in its database generated an immediate match against its hot lists. In other words, 99.9 percent of the ALPR images Los Angeles stores are for vehicles that were not on a hot list at the time the image was made,” the Auditor of the State Of California found. “Nevertheless, the stored images provide value beyond immediate hit alerts, as law enforcement personnel can search the accumulated images to determine the vehicles present at particular locations and to track vehicles’ movements at particular times in order to gather or resolve leads in investigations.”
The state audit found the program at risk of data breach and abuse and in need of clearly designed policies for how long data can be stored and how it can be used.
The programs have their critics including the American Civil Liberties Union, which conducted its own study of automated license plate readers. According to the ACLU, there have been numerous invasions of privacy linked to the license plate readers including cases of law enforcement officers using them to stalk people in their personal lives.
“The ACLU stated that increasing numbers of cameras, long data retention periods, and sharing of ALPR images among law enforcement agencies allow agencies to track individuals’ movements in detail, and it has voiced concerns that such constant monitoring can inhibit the exercise of free speech and association,” according to the state audit. “The ACLU has also raised concerns that law enforcement officers could inappropriately monitor the movements of individuals such as ex‑spouses, neighbors, and other associates.”
According to the audit, there have been hundreds of instances of law enforcement personnel across several departments being fired or reprimanded for abusing license plate readers for personal use.
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