Latest news with #AutomatedLicensePlateReader
CBS News
24-07-2025
- CBS News
When license plate readers get it wrong
In 2018, Brian Hofer and his younger brother were driving to visit their parents for Thanksgiving. It should have been a routine trip. But that evening they found themselves held at gunpoint by a group of law enforcement officers. The incident was the result of technology gone wrong. Hofer's vehicle had been flagged as stolen by an Automated License Plate Reader — ALPR — system. When he drove by, the reader alerted authorities. "Your life definitely is different after you have guns pointed at you," he said. This incident is one of over a dozen cases verified by CBS News during a six-month investigation into incidents of wrongful stops and even several instances of ALPR technology being abused. The consequences of ALPR errors can range from the inconvenient — such as mistaken toll booth charges — to the potentially dangerous, such as Hofer's armed detainment. In some instances the technology was improperly used by authorities, such as in Kansas, where law enforcement officers used license plate reader systems to stalk former partners in two separate incidents. In use since at least the late 1990s, automated license plate reader systems have advanced quickly in recent years. They now marry high-speed, high-resolution cameras with artificial intelligence to scan every license plate passing through a designated field of vision. The data is then compared against license plate numbers in databases. Thousands of agencies use these systems daily to scan plates in real time and identify potential matches. Departments use ALPRs as a crime-fighting tool to gather evidence for investigations and reduce crime as well as for traffic compliance. According to a survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, every police department overseeing more than one million citizens reported using the technology, as did 90% of sheriff's offices with 500 or more sworn deputies. Law enforcement officials told CBS News that the technology has allowed them to do their job more efficiently and has helped solve crimes ranging from stolen vehicles to missing persons cases. Pat Yoes, the national president of The National Fraternal Order of Police, an organization of hundreds of thousands of sworn law enforcement officers, said in an emailed statement to CBS News that ALPRs are "extraordinarily important in cases where there is an immediate threat to life or safety, as in an abduction or an armed threat driving to a target," adding that the information can be valuable in generating leads and closing cases. He said transparency is key. "The community should be made aware of the new technology, how it's used in the field, how it contributes to public safety, and how it addresses any privacy concerns," he said in the statement. "Technology like ALPRs is a valuable tool for many law enforcement agencies to make their communities safer." The rise of ALPR systems comes as law enforcement agencies across the country face staffing and recruiting challenges. A 2024 survey by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a professional association, found that U.S. agencies are operating at a nearly 10% staffing deficit. ALPR technology is one way to help fill this gap in manpower. License plate reader errors may occur for a variety of reasons. In some cases, letters or numbers are interpreted incorrectly by the Optical Character Recognition, or OCR, software. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, common issues including glare or misaligned cameras could impact accuracy. CBS News found that mistakes are often due to a mix of machine and human or administrative errors. In Española, New Mexico, a 12-year-old was handcuffed after an ALPR camera misread the last number of a license plate on a vehicle driven by her older sister as a '7' instead of the '2' it actually ended with, according to a lawsuit filed against the city. A month later, in a separate incident, a 17-year-old honors student was held at gunpoint in Española on his way home from school after officers mistook his vehicle for one associated with an individual who was being sought in connection with a string of armed robberies. In Aurora, Colorado, in 2020, a mother and her family, including her 6-year-old daughter, were pulled over at gunpoint and forced to lie face down on hot pavement. Again, ALPR technology was central to the stop. Police mistakenly flagged their Colorado license plate as matching that of a completely different vehicle from a different state — a stolen motorcycle registered in Montana. The incident, captured on video and widely condemned, led to a $1.9 million settlement from the city in 2024. The ACLU warns ALPR cameras could infringe on civil rights and violate the Constitution's Fourth Amendment by encouraging unreasonable searches. Despite widespread use, there is no federal legislative framework for ALPR use. Hofer, who has been involved in privacy advocacy for over a decade, is now the executive director of Secure Justice, an organization that aims to reduce government and corporate overreach. He says manual verification is necessary to see whether ALPR "hits," or matches, are accurate. Even so, he said, such checks are insufficient because data errors could cause a plate to "match" an incorrect entry in a database. "There are billions of scans a day in America. If there's even just a 10% error rate, that means there are so many opportunities for abuse to happen," Hofer said. Some concerned citizens are taking action. Last year, residents of Norfolk, Virginia, filed a federal lawsuit against the city, and in Illinois, two residents have sued the Illinois State Police over ALPR systems, arguing that their use violates Fourth Amendment rights. The latter case was dismissed without prejudice in Denault contributed to this report.
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Yahoo
Tacoma police release details on how toddler subject to AMBER Alert was found
Tacoma police released additional details Monday about the search that unfolded after a 2-year-old girl went missing Saturday, leading to her safe return hours later. Authorities activated an AMBER Alert across the state a little over two hours after a woman called to report her daughter, Delilah Everett, couldn't be found in or around a residence in the 4200 block of South Prospect Street, according to a police news release Monday. The alert was canceled that afternoon. Police announced that Delilah had been returned to her family unharmed and they were questioning a man in custody, The News Tribune reported. The Tacoma Police Department initially posted on Facebook that a man was suspected of taking the girl in his car after entering a fast-food restaurant at 4112 S. Steele St. at 9:10 a.m. Saturday. A man who wrote that he is Everett's father posted a reply to the Police Department's post Saturday afternoon, saying that he is grateful for the man who took the girl and that the man saved his daughter. The father declined to comment when The News Tribune reached him via direct message Monday, saying he had already talked to several other news teams, but said he would inform The News Tribune if he has a statement in the future. Here's how police found the toddler, according to the news release: ▪ 9:30 a.m: A call came in from a mother who said her child was missing from a residence in the 4200 block of South Prospect Street. An employee at a nearby business called to report that a man recently entered the business, saying he found the child alone outside and was looking for her parents. When the employee told him that police would be called to help, the man left with the child in his silver sedan. Police began searching for the child and the man based on surveillance footage from the business. Officers checked nearby police stations and the Tacoma Mall, contacted local hospitals and Tacoma Fire stations and ran searches through Flock Safety systems and Automated License Plate Reader technology for the man's vehicle. The search was unsuccessful. ▪ 9:52 a.m.: Suspecting a child abduction, the police patrol shift commander activated the department's Child Abduction Response Team (CART), which includes criminal investigators and personnel from various agencies trained to 'quickly and effectively recover a child who has been abducted, or who is missing under suspicious circumstances by utilizing a team of trained personnel.' ▪ 10:30 a.m.: CART members began arriving on scene and were briefed on the situation as patrol officers continued the search. ▪ 11:42 a.m.: In the absence of new information about the child's location or why she was taken, the Washington State Patrol issued an AMBER Alert across the state notifying the public of the missing child. The alert said the girl was last seen walking on South Steele Street before a man drove away with her toward 38th Street, The News Tribune reported. 'Within minutes, dozens of calls came in from community members,' the news release said. ▪ 11:50 a.m.: A caller provided authorities with 'key identifying information' about the man seen with the missing child. ▪ 12:06 p.m.: Based on the caller's information, police located the man's address, where they found the missing child. Police took the man into custody and interviewed him at police headquarters. Police also interviewed the man's friends and family. Police booked the man into the Pierce County Jail on an outstanding warrant and forwarded their investigation to prosecutors for a charging decision. The investigation is still active, and police might share further updates after a charging decision. 'The Tacoma Police Department would like to thank the community and our agency partners for their swift assistance during this incident,' the release says.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Texas police 'abused' license plate data for immigration search, Illinois police say
A Texas law enforcement agency reportedly used license plate data shared by a Chicago-area police department in locating a woman for immigration enforcement purposes, despite Illinois state law prohibiting such use. The Johnson County Sheriff's Office allegedly used data from Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) — also referred to as Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) — through Flock Safety, a private company. The "National Lookup" feature is used by law enforcement agencies "for purposes of immigration enforcement." The Illinois Secretary of State's Office notified the Mount Prospect Police Department that it was among multiple other law enforcement agencies whose data was used by the Texas department. "The use of ALPR data collected by Mount Prospect Flock Safety cameras for this purpose does not align with the Mount Prospect Police Department's values and is a clear violation of Illinois state law," the Chicago department stated in a press release. A site called 404 Media shows the Johnson County Sheriff's Office requested data from 83,000 of Flock Safety's cameras, including those in Mount Prospect. Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias is requesting an investigation into the incident by the attorney general, The Independent reports. He says he is also making an audit system to prevent similar uses of ALPR data in the future. A 2023 Illinois law prohibits the sharing of license plate data to track undocumented immigrants or people seeking abortions. A total of 262 immigrant-related searches were made between mid-January and April in Mount Prospect alone, Giannoulias said. Deputy Secretary of State Scott Burnham warned that such violations could lead to the loss of state funding. Giannoulias says he requested that Flock Safety block access to 62 out-of-state agencies seeking data related to abortion or immigration. The ALPR company also created a program to flag access requests with the terms "abortion" and "immigration" and deny the requests. Finally, law enforcement agencies will be required to respect the secretary of state's audits with the goal of noting trends in certain requests, Burnham explained. "I am tremendously upset that some law enforcement agencies who agreed to follow Illinois law, in order to gain access to our ALPR data, conducted illegal searches violating the trust of our community," Chief of Police Michael Eterno said. "As disappointed as I am with these other agencies, I want to emphasize that no member of the Mount Prospect Police Department shared ALPR data in violation of the law. I realize that this misuse of Mount Prospect's ALPR data violates the trust of our community, and we as a department will continue to work to enhance the Flock ALPR software and ensure this abuse does not occur in the future." Following the incident with the Johnson County Sheriff's Office, the Mount Prospect Police Department said it has made, or plans to make, several changes to prevent similar incidents in the future, including opted out of the Flock Safety "National Lookup" feature cancelled any data sharing agreement with law enforcement agencies who violated Illinois state law revoked access to Mount Prospect's ALPR data for all law enforcement agencies outside of Illinois will be updating its ALPR policy to include regular audits of the searches being conducted by internal and external users As of Friday morning, the Johnson County Sheriff's Office had not issued a public statement about the incident. The name of the individual who was the focus of the search has not been disclosed to the public. Flock Safety has released a statement amid what it calls "a misunderstanding." The ALPR company indicated contact with the Johnson County Sheriff's Office regarding the incident in Illinois, seeking to correct "misreporting" that the program was used "to target people seeking reproductive healthcare." The Sheriff allegedly told Flock Safety that this "is unequivocally false." "According to the Sheriff's office, a local family called and said their relative had self-administered an abortion, and then she ran away," Flock Safety said. "Her family feared she was hurt, and asked the deputy to search for her to the best of their abilities. Law enforcement performed a nationwide search in Flock, the broadest search possible within the system, to try to locate her quickly. Luckily, she was found safe and healthy in Dallas a couple of days later." The woman faces no charges and was never under criminal investigation, the ALPR company added, saying that Texas police were looking for her as a missing person rather than as a crime suspect. "We're grateful for the opportunity to work with Illinois officials to clarify what happened, correct misconceptions, and implement lasting improvements that uphold the trust of both law enforcement agencies and the residents they serve." — The Independent contributed to this report. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas police use of license plate data under investigation in Illinois
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
License plate reader vote postponed amid community, council concerns
AUSTIN (KXAN) — According to an email sent to Austin city council members and Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, City Manager TC Broadnax will postpone a vote on whether or not Austin police can continue to use license plate readers. The city manager wrote: 'While I appreciate the Austin Police Department's thorough presentation at today's work session regarding the Automated License Plate Reader technology and have confidence that APD can continue to use this tool in a responsible way focused on keeping Austinites safe, I am also sensitive to community concerns and outstanding questions from members of the City Council. Given concerns expressed today, I have decided to withdraw this item from the agenda at this time to provide more opportunities to address council members' questions and do our due diligence to alleviate concerns prior to bringing this item back to City Council for consideration.' It's unclear when license plate reader technology may come back to the city council for a vote. KXAN has reached out to APD for a response. During Tuesday's work session, APD explained to the dais why it finds the technology beneficial. 'This police department is 300 officers short. Currently, we do not have enough officers to [perform] the job that we would prefer to do without the use of technology to supplement [our] work,' said Assistant Austin Police Chief Sheldon Askew. 'Today we heard powerful testimony from residents, nonprofit leaders, privacy experts, and many others,' said Council Member Mike Siegel in a release. 'We are in an unprecedented time of authoritarian rule at the state and federal levels, and we should not be using City of Austin resources to fund a mass surveillance tool that can be used by private companies, immigration authorities, and other outside entities. I look forward to working with my colleagues on Council to support public safety strategies do not create such a risk of injury to our diverse communities.' You can read more about the contents of that work session and the discussion had here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Safety leaders question privacy of Austin license plate reader data
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Auditors this week called for the city to update the terms of its Automated License Plate Reader program to clarify how long data is stored and limit who can access it. The discussion took place just days before the Austin City Council is to consider the program's future. At Tuesday's Public Safety Commission meeting, members heard the results of an audit assessing the Austin Police Department's APLR pilot program from March 2024 to March 2025. Central Texas continues to grapple with use of license plate readers The audit said the city's 40 fixed cameras and the 500 cameras attached to Austin Police vehicles made an estimated 75 million scans of license plates. The city's vendors for ALPRs are Flock Safety and Axon. Recommendations from the audit said the language in the city's contract with Flock is too vague and 'possibly expansive.' Safety commissioners questioned how long vendors store that data. The original terms outlined that Austin's program would store the data for seven days, but the audit determined vendors can retain that data. Access to that data has come into question in recent months as immigration and deportation efforts have escalated under the Trump administration. Critics of ALPRs have accused local law enforcement agencies of sharing data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. APD Sergeant Lee Knouse responded to commissioners' questions about ICE's access to APD's data. He said data collected by ALPRs is only accessible to APD. 'When a network administrator looks into Flock, we can see who has searched our cameras, what they're searching for, when they search for it, if an ICE agent or an outside agent was accessing our cameras. We do not provide access to APD data to anyone outside of APD personnel who's been through our training,' Knouse said. The audit presentation will be made again to Austin City Council members at their workshop on Wednesday. The city council is expected to vote on the program's future at its regular Thursday meeting. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
