The House voted 132-0 Monday to pass a bill aimed at regulating police use of automated license plate readers.
Law enforcement officers use ALPRs — there are roughly 40 in use around the state — to capture digital images of license plate numbers, which, coupled with the car’s GPS coordinates, are uploaded into a database. Police are alerted if the plate number is associated with a stolen vehicle, suspended insurance or other violation.
The bill, S.18, limits the length of time that the license plate information can be retained to 18 months. The imaging data currently is kept on hand for four years.
The Vermont ACLU is concerned that the technology also retains a massive amount of data on innocent drivers, which could lead to privacy violations.
The House changed the Senate bill, which passed on March 29, to make the 18-month expiration date sunset in 2015. According to Rep. Michael McCarthy, D-St. Albans, the sunset allows the Legislature to “see if we’ve made the right call” by settling on an 18-month retention period.
Public Safety Commissioner Keith Flynn has suggested two years as an acceptable shelf life, while the Vermont ACLU has advocated for a shelf life of 30 days.
Supporters say the bill strikes a balance between law enforcement needs and the protection of civil liberties. Though the vote Monday was unanimous, several lawmakers made it clear that they won’t be permanently appeased.
Rep. Cynthia Browning, D-Arlington, said she believes 18 months is too short a shelf life and would unfairly deprive law enforcement and state’s attorneys of important data.
On the other side of the spectrum, Rep. Jim McCullough, D-Williston, said he thought it was “disturbing” that the cameras could monitor people’s “coming and goings at any moment for no particular reason.”
Rep. Patrick Brennan, R-Colchester, chairs the Transportation Committee, which worked on the bill. Brennan told the body, “Whether or not we are comfortable with the practice, it’s a fact of life.” S.18, Brennan said, “makes a relatively uncomfortable situation much better.”
McCullough was on the brink of offering an amendment that would turn the bill into a moratorium on ALPRs. He cautioned that the number of plate readers could expand dramatically in years to come. “We just don’t know what kind of a train wreck we are headed for as the cameras proliferate.”
But after quickly conferring with House leadership and supporters of the bill, McCullough decided against the move so as not to endanger the bill and risk leaving the devices unregulated for another year.
