Salt Lake Police Chief Brian Redd is in a tricky position. The department has been using automatic license plate readers, or ALPRs, for years. But now there’s a contentious public debate taking shape: How should police be using these cameras?
On one side, they’re a tool that can help police catch criminals more efficiently. On the other, many people believe they rob citizens of their privacy.
According to DeFlock, a website that tracks ALPR locations, there are more than 400 of these small black cameras dotted across Salt Lake County. Redd’s department operates 70 of those and can request access from other departments' cameras, as well. They take photos of license plates, and law enforcement can use the data to track vehicles suspected of being involved in a crime.
“The important thing is that we conduct good investigations and go beyond just the vehicle,” Redd said.
KUER recently requested logs from the Salt Lake City police department documenting its use of these readers over the last five years. In that time, police used the cameras in approximately 6,400 cases. The majority of instances were for stolen vehicles, but officers also used them for investigations into drugs, assaults, missing persons, child abductions and homicides.
Salt Lake City Council has heard concerns from constituents and watched as troubling stories from other states have emerged about severe misuse of the technology by police officers. The council is currently in the process of drafting an ordinance that would regulate law enforcement's use of ALPRs, including regular audits and requirements that any data requested have an active case number attached.
It’s something Redd believes is necessary, and something he supports.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Hugo Rikard-Bell: Are you catching more criminals and making more arrests since the introduction of automatic license plate readers?
Brian Redd: Absolutely, they are critical in our investigations, and they have solved serious crimes in our city, located missing individuals, and so they are of great value to us here at the police department.
HRB: Since becoming police chief, is there one instance that stands out when you were very glad that you had this sort of technology?
BR: Yeah, I can share a couple. One was the triple homicide [in Wayne County] that happened earlier this year. A plate reader was used to locate that individual going out of state. Shortly after that case, we had a homicide here in downtown Salt Lake City at a hotel, and that individual also left the state. But plate readers were able to identify that vehicle in Wyoming, and we were able to take that person into custody.
HRB: You’ve said that the department has 70 of these automatic license plate readers in the city. Is there a limit to how many you can put up or should put up in a certain area?
BR: There's currently no limit in state statute. Those are discussions I'm sure that will be going on as this is debated at the state level.
I would say that we typically want to look at our crime data, so that's one thing that we want to look at, and then we know that people come in and out of the city to commit crime. And so we want to put those plate readers kind of on prominent streets in the city where people are ingressing and egressing from our cities. So those are a couple of the ways that we would look at the density of plate readers.
HRB: But that's sort of where people get concerned about that whole; “Are they getting watched on every street they walk down,” right?
BR: Yeah, that's correct. That's how people are feeling, and again, we shouldn't dismiss those feelings and fears.
And as you know, again, we're not accessing the plate reader data unless we are investigating a crime or looking for a missing individual. You know, we're locating stolen vehicles, so you know we have to make sure in law enforcement that we're using it properly, that our people are not abusing the system at all, and if they do, they should be disciplined.
HRB: Some people want to require a warrant to access some of this data. What's your take on that?
BR: I mean it's not typically common that you would obtain a search warrant to access data that's already in your possession. That would be a new theory, I think. So that's one thing.
I mean, another one is you're not always to that probable cause level. You're conducting an investigation. You maybe don't have an individual identified, you know, to actually write a search warrant against. And then you know, one of our detectives mentioned this to me once, and he said, ‘You know, we had a case here at Salt Lake City where we couldn't get a warrant because it was a missing persons case, and we didn't have a crime identified yet.’
We had a missing person, and the courts wouldn't give us a search warrant so that we could access certain information. So, thankfully, the family was cooperating and trying to provide information, but you may, in a missing person case, not have a crime yet, and therefore you couldn't get a search warrant.
HRB: You've used this technology for years now. One of the reasons why this is such a hot topic at the moment is because of the public outcry against federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Has ICE ever asked for Salt Lake City Police Department ALPR data?
BR: Not that I'm aware of in the last year and a half that I've been here. For civil immigration enforcement purposes, it's not allowed. If you look at the state statute, it requires an active criminal investigation. So, no, they don't have access to our plate readers, and they wouldn't be able to get access because they do civil immigration enforcement. It's not allowed and that'll be specified in the city ordinance. No civil immigration enforcement. Also, no facial recognition in the city ordinance, which we support.
