San Jose Police Announce Three Stolen Vehicles Recovered Using Automatic License Plate Reader

Saturday night in the Silicon Valley city of San Jose, the assistant police chief tweeted out praise for their recently-upgraded Automatic License Plate Readers:Officers in Air3 [police helicopter], monitoring the ALPR system, got alerted to 3 stolen cars. They directed ground units to the cars. All 3 drivers in custody! No dangerous vehicle pursuits occurred, nor were they needed. 2 drivers tried to run away. But, you can't outrun a helicopter!" There's photos - one of the vehicles appears to be a U-Haul pickup truck - and the tweet drew exactly one response, from San Jose mayor Matt Mahan:"Nice job...! Appreciate the excellent police work and great to see ALPRs having an impact. Don't steal cars in San Jose!" Some context: The San Jose Spotlight (a nonprofit local news site) noted that prior to last year license plate readers had been mounted exclusively on police patrol cars (and in use since 2006). But last year the San Jose Police Department launched a new "pilot program" with four cameras mounted at a busy intersection, that "captured nearly 300,000 plate scans in just the last month, according to city data." By August this had led to plans for 150 more stationary ALPR cameras, a local TV station reported. "Just this week, police said they solved an armed robbery and arrested a suspected shooter thanks to the cameras."During a forum to update the community, San Jose police also mentioned success stories in other cities like Vallejo where they've reported a 100% increase in identifying stolen vehicles. San Jose is now installing hundreds around the city and the first batch is coming in the next two to three months.... The biggest concern among those attending Wednesday's virtual forum was privacy. But the city made it clear the data is only shared with trained police officers and certain city staff, no out-of-state or federal agencies. "Anytime that someone from the San Jose Police Department accesses the ALPR system, they have to input a reason, the specific plates they are looking for and all of that information is logged so that we can keep track of how many times its being used and what its being used for," said Albert Gehami, Digital Privacy Officer for San Jose. More privacy concerns were raised in September, reports the San Jose Spotlight:The San Jose City Council unanimously approved a policy Tuesday that formally bans the police department from selling any license plate data, using that information for investigating a person's immigration status or for monitoring legally protected activities like protests or rallies. Even with these new rules, some privacy advocates and community groups are still opposed to the technology. Victor Sin, chair of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of ACLU of Northern California, expressed doubt that the readers are improving public safety. He made the comments in a letter to the council from himself and leaders of four other community organizations. "Despite claims that (automated license plate reader) systems can reduce crime, researchers have expressed concerns about the rapid acquisition of this technology by law enforcement without evidence of its efficacy," the letter reads. Groups including the Asian Law Alliance and San Jose-Silicon Valley NAACP also said the city should reduce the amount of time it keeps license plate data on file down from one year..... Mayor Sam Liccardo said he's already convinced the readers are useful, but added the council should try to find a way to measure their effect. "It's probably not a bad idea for us to decide what are the outcomes we're trying to achieve, and if there is some reasonable metric that captures that outcome in a meaningful way," Liccardo said. "Was this used to actually help us arrest anybody, or solve a crime or prevent an accident?" An EFF position paper argues that "ALPR data is gathered indiscriminately, collecting information on millions of ordinary people."By plotting vehicle times and locations and tracing past movements, police can use stored data to paint a very specific portrait of drivers' lives, determining past patterns of behavior and possibly even predicting future ones - in spite of the fact that the vast majority of people whose license plate data is collected and stored have not even been accused of a crime.... [ALPR technology] allows officers to track everyone..." Maybe the police officer's tweet was to boost public support for the technology? It's already led to a short report from another local news station:San Jose police recovered three stolen cars using their automated license-plate recognition technology (ALPR) on Saturday, according to officials with the San Jose Police Department. Officers inside of Air3, one of SJPD's helicopters, spotted three stolen cars using ALPR before directing ground units their way. Police say no pursuits occurred, though two of the drivers tried to run away.

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