License plate reading cameras are capturing your data in Southern California

City leaders, along with law enforcement officials gathered to announce the launch of a program that will install 100 license plate reading cameras in the San Fernando Valley that authorities believe will help police track criminals down.

Officials said that some neighborhoods north of Rinaldi Street in Porter Ranch have some of the highest crime rates in the city, which is why several cameras have already been installed in the area.

“Last year, the Devonshire District reported that homes north of this very street experienced a 103% jump in home burglaries,” District 12 Councilman Jon Lee said at the event.

Dozens more of the automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, will be installed at major intersections throughout the northwest San Fernando Valley by the end of the year, including across Porter Ranch, Chatsworth, Northridge, Granada Hills, West Hills and North Hills.

Councilman Lee allocated $500,000 for the project and law enforcement officials said it could not come at a better time with the Los Angeles Police Department understaffed with an estimated 9,000 sworn officers, the lowest number of officers in more than two decades.

“I promise you, this is going to have an impact on crime,” LAPD Interim Chief Dominic Choi said at the event. “ALPRs allow officers to scan and capture license plate data in real time, helping us identify vehicles associated with criminal activities.”

Once the vehicle data is captured by the cameras, it is then sent to an LAPD computer system that officials say is privacy protected.

“Only a very specific group of investigators in LAPD are able to engage the system to conduct searches,” Lee said, though what group of investigators.

The city currently has 160 of its own cameras, with LAPD having 1,500 vehicles equipped with the technology. Officers with in-car computers can receive alerts and information on vehicles tied to wanted suspects, stolen cars, missing persons and more.

Martha Carasco, whose home has been burglarized twice, most recently in April, said she wishes the ALPRs had been installed earlier.

“They dragged the safe through my balcony,” she explained. “The police department estimated that the getaway car was just in front of our house. Had these cameras been in place, they probably would’ve caught all the robbers from my house.”

While Chief Choi praised the use of ALPRs, saying that in LAPD’s South Bureau the cameras helped solve several high-profile murders, there are critics of the automated readers.

A grand jury in Sacramento County earlier this year reported that investigators with the police and sheriff’s departments improperly shared license plate data and, potentially, other sensitive information belonging to motorists in that county with out-of-state law enforcement agencies, the Los Angeles Times reported .

Nonprofit watchdog organizations, including the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have filed public record act requests against several California law enforcement agencies, including against the L.A. police and sheriff’s departments relating to the storage and usage of data captured by ALPRs .

In October of last year, California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued two bulletins about the responsibility state law enforcement agencies have to safeguard the information as well as “policies regarding the use of data collected or accessed through the Automated License Plate Reader system.”

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