The Salt Lake City Council is drafting a new ordinance that would require law enforcement to show an active case number to use automatic license plate reader data.
So how many times has the Salt Lake City police used these cameras for investigations already?
According to public records obtained by KUER, the department has used the cameras in more than 6,400 investigations since 2021.
These little black cameras attached to light poles can snap a picture of a license plate and then store that data. Law enforcement is then able to use this data to track a vehicle if it’s involved in a crime.
The majority of cases Salt Lake police used them in involved stolen vehicles, but officers have also used license plate readers for investigations into drugs, assaults, missing persons, child abductions and homicides.
“Are these cameras and the use of them inherently bad or good? No, they're a tool,” said Emily Grimmius, privacy policy analyst for Libertarian think tank the Libertas Institute and former prosecutor in New York City.
Grimmius sees a potential problem if the cameras are used for a fishing expedition without justification. Under a 2023 Utah law, police can use the cameras in four circumstances: to apprehend someone with an outstanding warrant, to find a missing or endangered person, to locate a stolen vehicle and as part of an active criminal investigation.
The words “active criminal investigation” are too much of a catch-all for Grimmius, as “It doesn't take much for an investigation to be maintained as active.”
There’s debate about how to regulate the use of automatic license plate readers in the U.S. and Utah. The Salt Lake City Council’s proposal would require law enforcement to attach an actual case number to every use, but does not go as far as requiring a warrant. The council argued that a warrant is overkill in some instances.
Grimmius disagrees.
“I know for a lot of people, they think, ‘Oh, it involves so much paperwork and a judge's sign-off,’ but really, that's not the case,” she said, adding that in her experience, if you have enough to investigate, you have enough for a warrant. And that warrant begins a paper trail that keeps law enforcement accountable.
Libertas Institute Executive Director Jason Chipman said there are inherent collateral risks to civilians that will emerge if the technology is overused and certain parameters are not put in place.
“When it comes to ALPRs, you could be under investigation just because you happen to be in the area at the time something happened,” he said.
He believes in the need for a comprehensive surveillance tech framework focused on constitutional rights and civil liberties rather than just regulations for license plate readers themselves. He said technology will continue to evolve faster than legislation can keep up.
Both he and Grimmius want to get across to local lawmakers that this data should only be used when explicitly necessary.
“I would say that your civil liberties shouldn't change just because the technology changes and evolves,” Grimmius said.
She equates license plate cameras to the modern-day equivalent of British soldiers kicking down doors willy-nilly before the Revolutionary War.
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill has seen a rise in the use of license plate data in several crimes he’s prosecuted.
“So we've seen this technology definitely in homicides,” he said. “We've seen this technology in drive-by shootings. We've seen this technology if there's an underlying criminal conduct.”
By the time a case gets to his desk, Gill emphasized that the probable cause to use such data that raised concerns for Grimmius has been fulfilled. But he recognized the fears of misuse.
“I think there needs to be processes and protocols in that agency, how they train and how they and who gets to have access and the parameters within that, how that access is defined,” he said.
So far this year, his office has filed more than 9,000 cases, so license plate data isn't used in every instance. But Gill described the information license plate readers have the potential to reveal as “very invasive.” When asked whether a warrant should be required, he was open to the idea.
“I've got to really have a compelling reason why I should be able to look at that,” he said. “And I think a warrant requirement certainly is a good way.”
