Sacramento, CA – March 28, 2012 – With five votes Yea, three votes Nay and one No Vote, California’s anti-ALPR law moves to the Judiciary Committee and one step closer to becoming law.
After appeasing California law enforcement associations that testified that ALPR gathered data helps provide leads to solving crimes and locating stolen vehicles, California’s SB 1330 introduced by California Senator Joe Simitian (D – Palo Alto) passed Committee and is one step away from outlawing the use of ALPR equipment and acquired data in the state of California for any person outside of law enforcement.
While concessions were made to allow law enforcement to maintain data “not more than 60 days, except in circumstances when the data is being used as evidence or for all felonies being investigated, including, but not limited to, auto theft, homicides, kidnapping, burglaries, elder and juvenile abductions, Amber Alerts, and Blue Alerts.” Crucial provisions outlawing ALPR data use to persons outside of law enforcement maintain in the bill.
2413.7., (2) The person shall not sell LPR data for any purpose and shall
not make the data available to an agency or person that is not a law
enforcement agency or an individual who is not a law enforcement
officer.
8.(c) A person whose information is sold or disclosed in violation
of this section may bring a civil action and shall be entitled to
recover any and all consequential and incidental damages, including
all costs and attorney’s fees.
A scheduling date for the Judiciary Committee vote has not yet been scheduled.
I not sure of what parties are all involved in this battle. Has anyone contacted the International Parking Institute? It would seem to me that outlawing LPR would affect cameras used at parking facilities at airports, etc.. It’s sad to see that dimwitted public officials cannot find value in a data base created by private enterprise that could aid in solving crimes.
From your previous post Lee , you are correct we should ALL unite and fight, but for years our industry only seems to CRY about things after it changes. To the other states that may feel that it is not your fight! IF CALIFORNIA adopts it , you can bet it will move to your state as well.
Scott, I agree with your previous post this JOE guy is fighting a fight that we all have already lost to technology! This is just life. There are hundreds of cameras taking pictures of us daily and this is now just a way of life. GOOGLE/ YOUTUBE both post pictures from public places daily that RECOGNIZE license plates that are some form or fashion monetary gain. Maybe we need GOOGLE/YOUTUBE to join our fight for our LPR rights as this could also affect pictures that they store.
This JOE guy contradicts himself as far as fighting for our privacy rights, how can you dictate what we do with pictures in PUBLIC view from my private camera?
Those of you that have not joined the LPR network will wish that you had fought this bill to keep some control of our industry as the old repo a car at the given address is almost a MYTH.
I personally believe that the more LPR cameras in the world the better, not just for recovery for safety and national security. There have been documented cases where non law enforcement REPO AGENTS have captured plates of units used in crimes that never would have been solved. We all should privacy rights, but pictures in PUBLIC? if someone shoots me in public view and local PD only has the last registered address (NO GOOD) no leads all because they were able to store data for 60 days, I would hope that PD would post the story and plate and a REPO agent would provide PD the correct address for the shooter. I would have to wonder who this bill was really written to protect. We all know that PD does not scan the alleys and ghettos that we scan. I’m not saying to share data with law enforcement, just that our data can only help not hurt you, unless you are a DEBTOR driving for free or comitting crimes.
The bill also kept mentioning that CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL can retain LPR data. To my knowledge CHP is the only Law enforcement that is not using LPR unless maybe at the truck scales. Why would you even limit CHP protecting our roads requesting they get a warrant to verify if a plate had issues over 60 plus days?
why 60 days?
Would the Bill require BANK ATM’S to not log a plate?
INDIAN RESERVATIONS/ CASINOS?
AIRPORTS? MALLS?
Has anyone started to put info together letters, etc to address JOE SIMITIAN and the SENATE?
If so please post contact info or any fights already started so that we can all join the fight to preserve our industry.