San Diego has 500 license plate readers posted around town. Will it keep them?

Two years after the San Diego Metropolis Council authorised putting in 500 automated license plate recognition cameras citywide, the expertise is in want of an overhaul — and nonetheless controversial.

On Tuesday, the council will take a look at the plate readers as a part of a evaluate of 54 surveillance applied sciences utilized by police, together with cameras officers put on on their uniforms, SWAT robots and tactical gear.

The San Diego Police Division greets readers as a drive multiplier that helps clear up crimes. In 2024, there have been 36 homicides in San Diego. Data obtained from the license plate readers helped in almost a 3rd of investigations and led to 6 arrests, police mentioned. With out the expertise, 4 of these circumstances wouldn’t have been solved, a spokesperson mentioned.

Police additionally be aware that for the reason that system’s launch, they’ve recovered $6 million in stolen property, together with greater than 400 automobiles.

Critics declare that the automated license plate readers create a mass surveillance community and infringe on civil rights. And as communities reel from the Trump administration’s immigration insurance policies, many concern the federal authorities may enhance entry to native surveillance methods, regardless of legal guidelines prohibiting it. A Associated Press investigation Printed final month, the U.S. Border Patrol mentioned it’s utilizing a license plate reader program that flags automobiles deemed suspicious based mostly on journey routes and areas.

As San Diego struggled to shut a funds gap this 12 months, critics lobbied to show off its readers, who spend $2 million a 12 months. In June, the Metropolis Council agreed to make funding contingent on evaluating the expertise.

A number of dozen individuals – together with two council members – gathered in entrance of Metropolis Corridor final week to oppose the license plate readers. “In San Diego, our residents anticipate security, however additionally they anticipate their metropolis to guard their proper to privateness,” Councilman Henry Foster III mentioned throughout the assembly.

The reauthorization of the expertise is a part of an ordinance San Diego created in 2023 to control the usage of all surveillance the town makes use of, it by a civil rights lens. The evaluation should happen yearly.

That very same 12 months, the council voted 6-3 to approve the license plate readers. That is the primary time readers have acquired a evaluate.

When the town instituted the surveillance ordinance, the Privateness Advisory Board was additionally created to evaluate all surveillance expertise.

A memo within the Metropolis Council agenda packet exhibits that the board final month advisable discontinuing the usage of the readers except the division takes a number of steps, together with enhancing the annual report to extend transparency.

For instance, the board needs a written assertion from Flock, the corporate that gives the expertise, that it complies with San Diego’s coverage. It additionally needs Flock to substantiate that it has not shared the info and that there have been no information breaches, and requested for routine third-party danger administration audits and a complete abstract of neighborhood complaints.

In a separate memo, the board advisable approving the coverage on the usage of the plate readers, topic to some adjustments. Any further, the info can be saved and made accessible for 30 days. The administration wished to make the info inaccessible after 24 hours except a court docket issued an order to realize entry. And after 14 days, they instructed, the info must be deleted. Police rejected each strategies: 14 days isn’t lengthy sufficient for an investigation, and requiring a warrant can’t be imposed on the native stage, officers mentioned.

The 2 memos say primarily the identical factor, two sides of the identical coin, mentioned advisory board chairman Tim Blood. “The board wished to ship a message: ‘Look, you should not use this stuff with out implementing the suggestions.’

Whereas police rejected the 2 strategies relating to search warrants and entry, they did agree to simply accept or take into account the board’s remaining 37 suggestions.

Final month, the town’s Public Security Fee reviewed the 54 surveillance applied sciences, together with the plate readers, and unanimously advisable that the Metropolis Council approve their continued use.

“I’ve to stability the concept that we have to shield individuals from these heinous crimes and that these instruments assist towards the theoretical menace that the federal authorities would possibly break the regulation and are available and take these cameras,” Councilmember Marni von Wilpert mentioned throughout the assembly.

Seth Corridor is a member of the TRUST San Diego Coalition, which helped write the town’s surveillance ordinances, and he needs the signal readers gone.

“They inform us, no, simply wait. Wait till extra dangerous issues occur, after which perhaps we’ll take into consideration closing Flock. However we can’t wait,” he mentioned eventually week’s assembly. “Flock’s unsafe expertise is in San Diego neighborhoods at this time and is eroding belief at this time. We should restore belief in our metropolis.”

Barrio Logan resident Tonantzin “Cina” Sánchez famous there are 12 signal readers round Chicano Park and mentioned she fears Black and Latino communities are being focused. “We’re already essentially the most underserved communities, however you’ll be able to pour thousands and thousands of {dollars} into these cameras to overburden us,” she mentioned. “All eyes are on us.”

State regulation permits regulation enforcement businesses to go looking one another’s databases. However San Diego’s strict regulatory ordinance makes the town an island; exterior businesses would not have direct entry to the info. Any regulation enforcement company in California that wishes San Diego’s information should present that it’s investigating one among a restricted variety of forms of crimes. And nobody outdoors California can, together with federal businesses.

San Diego police officers mentioned they conduct weekly audits of license plate reader use to make sure compliance with state legal guidelines, native ordinances and division insurance policies. The audit additionally verifies that information is used for authentic makes use of.

The division introduced earlier this 12 months that for the primary almost three weeks it used the license plate reader system in late 2023 and early 2024, its information was unknowingly out there for different California businesses to go looking — and that just about 13,000 such searches occurred. When this was found, the swap was turned off.

Police additionally mentioned they deliberately shared information almost 50 occasions final 12 months with federal businesses, together with the FBI, Homeland Safety Investigations, Customs and Border Safety, the Secret Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration, however mentioned not one of the circumstances had been immigration-related. Police mentioned they ended the apply to totally adjust to state regulation prohibiting information sharing with outdoors or federal businesses.

Dan Haley, Flock’s chief authorized officer, mentioned final week that the corporate understands that “we’re in a very political second on this nation proper now the place individuals have authentic considerations about surveillance.” Nonetheless, he mentioned those that oppose the expertise may really profit from it.

That is, Haley says, as a result of each time the Flock system is searched, a everlasting report is created. “Within the uncommon occasion that that expertise is misused, proof of that misuse is there on the platform, and that’s by design,” he mentioned.

He additionally mentioned there isn’t any “large everlasting database” and famous that the default setting is to delete information after 30 days, though businesses can select to maintain their information longer.

“Numerous considerations about Flock come from hypotheses,” Haley mentioned.

As a result of California prohibits sharing such information with federal and non-state businesses, he mentioned Flock in March eliminated California from the nationwide lookup service that enables businesses to share information.