Automated License Plate Readers Threaten Abortion Access. Here's How Policymakers Can Mitigate the Risk

Deeplinks 2022-09-28

Summary:

Over the last decade, a vast number of law enforcement agencies around the country have adopted a mass surveillance technology that uses cameras to track the vehicles of every driver on the road, with little thought or respect given to the ways this technology might be abused. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling, that technology may soon be turned against people seeking abortions, the people who support them, and the workers who provide reproductive healthcare.

We're talking about automated license plate readers (ALPRs). These are camera systems that capture license plate numbers and upload the times, dates, and locations where the plates were seen to massive searchable databases. Sometimes these scans may also capture photos of the driver or passengers in a vehicle.

Sometimes these cameras are affixed to stationary locations. For example, if placed on the only roads in and out of a small town, a police department can monitor whenever someone enters or leaves the city limits. A law enforcement agency could install them at every intersection on major streets to track a person in real time whenever they pass a camera. 

Police can also attach ALPRs to their patrol cars, then capture all the cars they pass. In some cities police are taught to do "gridding," where they drive up and down every block of a neighborhood to capture data on what cars are parked where. There is also a private company called Digital Recognition Network that has its own contractors driving around, collecting plate data, and they sell that data to law enforcement.

For years, EFF and other organizations have tried to warn government officials that it was only a matter of time before this technology would be weaponized to target abortion seekers and providers. Unfortunately, few would listen, because it seemed unthinkable that Roe v. Wade could be overturned. That was clearly a mistake. Now cities and states that believe abortion access is a fundamental right must move swiftly and decisively to end or limit their ALPR programs.

How ALPR Data Might Be Used to Enforce Abortion Bans

ALPR technology has long been valued by law enforcement because of the lax restrictions on the data. 

Few states have enacted regulations and, consequently, law enforcement agencies collect as much data as possible on everyone, regardless of any connection to a crime, and store it for excessively long periods of time (a year or two years is  common). Law enforcement agencies typically do not require officers to get a warrant, demonstrate probable cause or reasonable suspicion, or show really much proof at all of a law enforcement interest before searching ALPR data. Meanwhile, as EFF has shown through hundreds of public records requests, it is the norm that agencies will share ALPR data they collect broadly with other agencies nationwide, without requiring any justification that the other agencies need unfettered access. Police have long argued that you don't have an expectation of privacy when driving on public streets, conveniently dodging how this data could be used to reveal private information about you, such as when you visit a reproductive health clinic.

That means there's very little to stop a determined police investigator from using either their own ALPR systems to enforce abortion bans or accessing the ALPR databases of another jurisdiction to do so. If a state or city wants to protect the right to seek an abortion, they must ensure that places that have criminalized abortion cannot access their data.

Here are a few examples of how this might play out:

Location Searches: Many ALPR software products, such as Motorola Solutions' Vigilant Plate

Link:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/automated-license-plate-readers-threaten-abortion-access-heres-how-policymakers

From feeds:

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Tags:

justice

Authors:

Dave Maass

Date tagged:

09/28/2022, 16:33

Date published:

09/28/2022, 13:23