Automatic License Plate Readers to Return?

Austin police say retaining footage for 30 days could help in investigations, but Council is wary (photo by John Anderson)

A coalition of criminal justice and privacy advocates have called on City Council to reject the Austin Police Department's request to reinstate its controversial use of automatic license plate readers.

After several postponements over the past few months, a resolution on the Sept. 1 Council agenda would allow APD to spend $114,775 from the current fiscal year's budget (ending Sept. 30) to reinstate the program, which was eliminated along with much other APD spending as City Hall tried to "reimagine public safety" and reallocate funds in the fiscal 2021 budget, approved after a summer of Black Lives Matter protests and police and counterprotester violence. The resolution, authored by Coun­cil Member Mackenzie Kelly and co-sponsored by CMs Leslie Pool, Ann Kitchen, Kathie Tovo, and Paige Ellis, would also direct staff to identify money in the upcoming fiscal 2023 budget (the one Council just approved, beginning Oct. 1) to continue funding the program.

ALPRs use cameras mounted on stationary objects or patrol vehicles to capture images of all the license plates that pass by, adding them to a database that can be instantly compared against "hot lists" of vehicles used by persons of interest to law enforcement. Police officials characterize ALPRs as an important technology that allows for more efficient investigations of suspected criminal activity, but justice and privacy advocates locally and nationally warn that the technology could allow APD to conduct mass surveillance on everyone driving a personal vehicle.

Electronic Frontier Foundation-Austin President Kevin Welch told the Chronicle that because of how the technology functions and its potential for misuse within APD or exploitation from without, EFF-Austin and other advocates (including the Austin Justice Coalition, Grassroots Leadership, and the Texas Fair Defense Project) don't think Council should authorize APD to reinstate the program at all.

"We believe ALPRs are a mass surveillance technology because they canvass an entire area indiscriminately by gathering information about where people were at certain times," Welch said, "without a warrant, probable cause, or evidence of criminal wrongdoing." Factoring all that together, EFF-Austin views ALPRs as an "obvious violation of the Fourth Amendment," which constitutionally protects against unwarranted search and seizure and, in some court holdings, has been found to protect an individual's right to privacy.

As written, Kelly's resolution would require APD to "destroy" all of its ALPR data after 30 days (excluding scans relating to criminal investigations), but the local coalition of ALPR opponents wants APD to adopt a much shorter retention period, if indeed the program is reinstated. The fear is that keeping that data on hand for a month opens up thousands of people who are not under criminal investigation to potential privacy violations. It could be used by police to surveil activists, help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents track down undocumented immigrants facing deportation, or help law enforcement track people accused of providing or obtaining abortions, which advocates say could undermine Council's recent passage of the GRACE Act.

The resolution would only allow ALPR data to be shared with other law enforcement agencies – but that list itself totals more than 800 different entities across the nation. And even if none of them had nefarious intent, the data captured by ALPRs could be stolen and leaked by hackers, which is what happened to millions of English motorists two years ago.

CM Chito Vela has proposed amendments to Kelly's resolution, including one that would reduce the 30-day retention period to three minutes. Advocates see this as a strong safeguard; because a scanned license plate can be checked against the criminal investigations database instantly, they argue that the scans are not needed after the database query is completed. Vela's changes would allow ALPR scans to be retained past the three-minute period if they relate to investigation of a felony, a stolen vehicle, or a missing person case, along with other oversight protections. (Kelly's resolution already prohibits APD from using ALPRs to conduct warrant roundups or collect traffic fines.)

At Council's Aug. 17 budget meeting, though, APD Chief Joseph Chacon said that a three-minute retention period was insufficient. In some cases, APD may not be aware that a scanned license plate relates to a criminal investigation, but having the records on hand for 30 days could allow detectives to check the ALPR database for new leads as more information comes in.

Elsewhere on the Sept. 1 agenda, Council will take a second-reading vote on the 305 S. Congress zoning case, known as the Statesman Planned Unit Development. The case is perhaps the most significant this Council has ever undertaken, given its proximity to Lady Bird Lake, inclusion of a Project Connect Blue Line station, and prominence inside the South Central Waterfront vision plan, which will itself transform Downtown. Council has voted on the case once (three votes are required), and the second vote has faced a number of postponements as Council members debate how to maximize public and private investment at the site.

In other zoning news, Council is posted to take the third and final vote on updates to the 12th Street Urban Renewal and Neigh­borhood Conservation Combining District plan. The NCCD has proven controversial among newer residents living in the neighborhood who fear the opening of cocktail lounges and entertainment venues near their homes. But Black Austinities who have worked for years to update the plans say allowing bars of the neighborhood variety along 12th Street is a vital piece of restoring the district to its former glory as a hub for Black culture in Austin.

Council will also vote to hand over Front Steps' permanent supportive housing contract to Family Eldercare, effective Sept. 1. The $1.04 million contract, managed partly by the Downtown Austin Community Court's Intensive Case Man­age­ment team, provides housing and case management services through 47 PSH units scattered throughout the city. Meanwhile, Front Steps is still running the Southbridge shelter and Austin Resource Center for the Homeless, though the city has chosen new nonprofits to take those over. The new contract negotiations are taking longer than expected. (Read more on the ARCH and Southbridge contracts.)