Audio By Carbonatix

Modern problems call for modern solutions. One of those solutions? Using automated license plate reader cameras to monitor traffic and fight crime. But the cameras present another concern: privacy and ethics. Austin, Texas, for instance, recently decided to shut down its ALPR program following a troubling audit and concerns from road-going Texans. 

Texans are worried about privacy, and Austin responded by halting its license plate reader program

Cities and security cameras go hand-in-hand. In London, England, for example, there’s a security camera for every 10 inhabitants. But conventional security cameras are just part of the equation. Many cities around the world use cameras with license plate reader technology to monitor vehicles, reclaim stolen property, and catch up with suspects. But the constantly watchful eye of an ALPR raises concerns for drivers regarding safety, ethics, and privacy.

According to The Daily Texan, the Austin Police Department (APD) deployed around 500 ALPRs by April of this year. While some of those cameras were fixed in locations throughout the Texas capital, some of the cameras resided on the back of APD’s patrol cars. At a glance, the results look promising. An audit into the camera’s efficacy revealed 165 arrests and 133 prosecutions as a direct result of the cameras. That’s nothing to dismiss. Better yet, police used the technology to recover a missing person. Perfect solution then, right? Not so fast.

See, many of the cameras are the result of a contractual agreement between the APD and Axon Enterprise. Axon is a Scottsdale, Arizona, company with a penchant for selling law enforcement and military equipment like, you guessed it, surveillance cameras. Therein lies the issue. Despite safeguards introduced two years ago, the city audit revealed that license plate reader data could reach “other agencies.” This includes immigration enforcement.

Sharon Strover, a co-director at the University of Texas Technology and Information Policy Institute, pointed out that the external nature of the supplying vendor may present transparency issues. “Transparency, which is one of our ethical principles, is what should be mandatory and what we should all be looking for,” Strover said about the tech.

That’s why APD offered “transparency portals” through which people can view collected data from Axon Enterprise and Flock Safety, the other vendor in a contract with the city. As part of that system, data inquiries must have documentation detailing the reason for the search. Troublingly, nearly 20% of Flock Safety data searches failed to meet that criterion.