http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-lender-column-plate-scanners-0422-20120421,0,2544240,full.column?fb_comment_id=fbc_10150711764258697_22328799_10150716592298697#f2948fa8266a584

As Use Of License Plate Scanners Spreads, Privacy Concerns Deepen

Jon Lender
 
Government Watch
 
5:13 p.m. EDT, April 21, 2012

The issue of who's watching ordinary citizens is becoming as omnipresent in the 2012 Connecticut legislature as the eye of the surveillance camera in so many parking lots, stores and other buildings.

The most prominent example is a controversial bill to allow red-light enforcement cameras at intersections — a measure that continues to advance, despite its rejection every year that it's come up before.

Next came a bill to commission a study into the possible use of radio-frequency identification technology — to use a computer "chip," stuck into cars, to catch unregistered or uninsured motorists. The proposal was killed in committee more than a week ago after opposition by the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut.

But there's still another example: It has to do with limiting use of the license plate scanners that local police departments have begun using to build up databases that can track any driver's movements over time. And the ACLU keeps banging away at it — not to kill it, but to pass it.

"The thing that we are trying to safeguard against is a massive buildup of data, [which] creates an instant dossier" on citizens, ACLU staff attorney David J. McGuire said Friday.

Legislative leaders have been reluctant to grapple this year with the license-plate scanners issue, but the ACLU now has managed to get a couple of lawmakers to insert substitute language into the empty shell of a bill that was headed nowhere — in effect, creating a new measure that would require police within 14 days to dump any license-plate data they've scanned, unless they're relevant to an investigation or prosecution.

Police chiefs say that 14 days is much too short a time — and they argue that, with proper controls on the data, five years is a more reasonable period for maintaining an information pool that could be invaluable in solving crimes.

With little more than two weeks left until the legislature's May 9 adjournment, it might be too late to bring the bill to a vote in both the House and Senate. But, even if not, this probably amounts to a skirmish before an ultimate battle that will be fought next year, or soon thereafter.

And so it's worth looking at the background:

The ACLU disclosed in February — through reports by the Associated Press, The Courant and others — that local police departments were beginning to buy and outfit their cruisers with scanning devices that look like cameras but can "read" the characters and numbers on license plates of all the cars they pass by, moving or parked.

1.3 Million Scanned

Ten Hartford-area police departments have pooled their scans to create a database containing more than 3.1 million records of more than 1.3 million vehicles since October 2009. There's no law to prevent police departments from keeping the data indefinitely and search it whenever they want — and McGuire said that is "like retroactive surveillance without probable cause."

With data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, McGuire said he learned that the scanner system showed when he went to a bar to meet a friend.

"People in Connecticut have an expectation of privacy," McGuire said. "You don't expect your every driving movement to be cataloged indefinitely." The technology of the 21st century requires that the law be revised to keep up with it, McGuire said.

However, a key lawmaker — Rep. Gerald Fox III, co-chairman of the judiciary committee, the logical place for such a bill to originate — expressed doubt after the ACLU's February disclosure that a bill could be passed this year to deal with the emerging issue even though "it's something I'm interested in learning more about."

That's pretty much where the issue rested until ACLU lobbyist Joseph Grabarz brought some language to the co-chairmen of the legislative insurance committee, Rep. Robert Megna, D-New Haven, and Sen. Joseph Crisco, D-Woodbridge.

It was too late on the 2012 legislative calendar to originate a new bill. But the committee chairmen agreed to incorporate Grabarz's proposed language into another bill that was headed nowhere. The old bill was intended to establish a "system that would use cameras to detect vehicles that are uninsured or unregistered and assess fines on the owners of such vehicles."

Here's the new language that was inserted: "Whenever a law enforcement agency uses an automated license plate recognition system, any data collected by such system and stored by such law enforcement agency … shall be expunged by such agency … not later than 14 days after the date of collection of such data unless such data is relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation or prosecution."

Megna said Friday that he didn't know whether the bill containing that new language would be acted on in the House before May 9.

Grabarz said even if it isn't, "We've raised consciousness" for the next legislative bout, whenever it comes. And, he said, inserting the new language got rid of an objectionable provision in the old bill, so it's good either way.

Privacy Vs. Safety

McGuire, the ACLU staff lawyer, said he believes that because "the majority of crimes are reported within two weeks," 14 days is the proper limit.

The new language calling for that limit, he said, is "the perfect balance between privacy and safety, because it gives the police ample time to use the data, and it allows the police to keep the data beyond a two-week period if it is relevant to the investigation."

Passing the bill, he said, "would make us a leader in the country" on the issue along with Maine, which limits such data retention to 21 days, and New Hampshire, which bans retention of such data outright.

However, Cromwell Police Chief Anthony Salvatore, legislative co-chairman of the Connecticut Chiefs of Police Association, said the ACLU proposal of 14 days "is unrealistic — it's not enough time."

He said that police might develop investigative leads long after that two-week period expired, and the license plate data might be helpful. For example, he said, if there's a series of crimes, and a certain car is placed at the scene of a recent one, that same car might have been scanned in recent years and could be placed near other crimes of a similar nature.

Salvatore pointed out that David Berkowitz, the notorious "Son of Sam" serial killer in New York City in the 1970s, was caught after his car was ticketed near one of the killings for being parked too close to a fire hydrant. A parking ticket, or a series of such tickets, is an old-fashioned record that can be traced — but it's a good analogy to the license-plate scanning database, Salvatore said.

He said that New York places a limit of five years on retention of such data — and that, he said, is more reasonable.

"Leads are developed, and you go back," Salvatore said.

The key to resolving concerns like the ACLU's over the scanners' database is to restrict access to it, Salvatore said. "Let's make it non-FOI-able," so that no one other than law enforcement personnel could possess or use the information except in trying to solve a crime, he said. That also could involve making it a crime to misuse or gain unauthorized access to the database, he said — similar to existing laws governing personal information in motor vehicles and criminal databases.

Salvatore acknowledged that the license plate scanner technology is becoming more widespread, noting that about 50 departments in Connecticut have begun using it. It costs $16,000 to $20,000 to outfit a police cruiser with the scanners, officials say, and federal grants to help buy them are becoming available as the price gradually comes down.

But Salvatore said there's no time left this year to enact legislation about it. "Rather than rush into it, let's take everyone's concerns and let's come up with a piece of good legislation. If legislation is needed, let's make sure we do it right."

Jon Lender is a reporter on The Courant's investigative desk, with a focus on government and politics. Contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , 860-241-6524, or c/o The Hartford Courant, 285 Broad St., Hartford, CT 06115 and find him on Twitter@jonlender.

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