License Plate Reader Data Policies and Usage Explained by Police
PIEDMONT P D LAUNCHES TRANSPARENCY PORTAL WITH LICENSE PLATE READER DATA
Piedmont Police Department ALPR Transparency Portal is First-of-Its-Kind in the Nation
– Acceptable uses, usage statistics, number of cameras the agency owns, other law enforcement agencies they share data with, specific statistics on the number of vehicles captured, Hotlist alerts, and searches performed over the past 30 days.
PRESS RELEASE –
In our ongoing effort to strengthen our relationship with our community and increase transparency, the Piedmont Police Department is pleased to unveil the public ALPR Transparency Portal, a partnership with Flock Safety. The Transparency Portal is intended to encourage open communication between police and the public around Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) technology.
Chief of Police Jeremy Bowers stated, “This first-of-its-kind program demonstrates the Piedmont Police Department’s commitment to openness, accountability, and integrity. ALPR technology has been a critical tool in our public safety efforts. It’s important that our community has the ability to understand how we are using this technology in the furtherance of public safety.”
The Transparency Portal serves to provide the public a view into the Piedmont Police Department’s ALPR usage specific to its use of Flock Safety cameras, data retention, and policies. It provides a landmark approach to transparency and accountability by providing the public with anonymized audit logs of police usage of the technology. It also displays usage statistics, including the number of cameras the agency owns, other law enforcement agencies they share data with, and specific statistics on the number of vehicles captured, Hotlist alerts, and searches performed over the past 30 days. The Piedmont Police Department is working to transition its ALPR system entirely to Flock Safety which will eventually provide the public with more insight into the Piedmont Police Department’s ALPR usage.
While ALPR technology has proven to be an effective tool in preventing and solving crime in Piedmont, the Piedmont Police Department also recognizes the importance of being transparent and effectively demonstrating its use of this technology.
Flock Safety has provided license plate reader technology to the Piedmont Police Department since 2020.
Flock Safety does not employ facial recognition, adheres to strict security standards and encryption standards, and does not share or sell customer data to third parties.
The Piedmont PD Transparency Portal can be accessed through: https://transparency.flocksafety.com/piedmont-ca-pd
Piedmont Police Department
This data (CSV file at the link) seems to be the record for PPD staff logging in to review ALPR data. That gives some transparency but not much more information than summary stats given in quarterly crime reports. And like all data it needs to be “massaged” a little more to make it easier for residents to understand. For example, there are 129 hot list hits and 90 searches but it seems there are only 14 different log-in dates so is that really only 14 searches/investigations of 129 hits? Some hits may not need to be investigated – PD responds instantly.
One way to improve this data would be to provide the location of these 5 cameras (aren’t there more like 12?). Actual locations of hot list hits might jog residents’ memory of events associated with a hit that could assist the investigation. The location of the ALPR are obvious now – why not associate the hits with specific cameras?