ATLANTA | A device mounted on patrol cars that instantly scans every license plate it sees is the focus of a debate over personal rights and government data collection.

A recent decision by the Georgia Supreme Court only fueled the discussion rather than resolving it.

Sonia Rodriguez was driving her car in Norcross when a police officer pulled her over. A tag reader mounted on the officer's car connected Rodriguez's car with an outstanding warrant for her son, Enrique Sanchez. Rodriguez told the officer her son was in jail, but he continued to question her and a female passenger.

Rodriguez gave the officer her driver's license, and the passenger, Ereka Williams, provided her name and birthday. During this exchange, she did not make eye contact with the officer, and he reported her behavior as suspicious.

When the officer returned to the car, he asked Rodriguez and Williams to step out; he had found an outstanding warrant for Williams in the police database.

Rodriguez allowed an officer to search her car at this time. Between about 5 ounces of marijuana was found in the car and in Williams' purse.

Both women were placed under arrest.

The entire episode lasted about 10 minutes.

Considering Rodriguez was never the subject of the tag reader's alert, she believed the detainment was too long. If the officer had let her go after hearing her son was in jail, the marijuana might not have been found.

Here, the seven court justices were divided on the issue. The majority of justices believed her continued detainment and the officer's questions were justified, but Justices Robert Benham and Carol Hunstein disagreed with the court's ruling and believe the officer's investigation should have ended.

UNRESOLVED ISSUES

This court case brought up an important discussion regarding license plate readers, said Rodriguez's attorney Eric C. Crawford. Because tag readers are becoming more widely used and more accurate, Crawford said lingering policy questions need to be settled. The Rodriguez decision, however, did not do it.

"I was disappointed with it, obviously, because we had looked for some guidance on whether these license plate readers are legal or not," he said.

While the court's decision established that Rodriguez could be questioned even though she was not the reason for the tag reader's alert, it did not provide details on what tag reader usage could be out of bounds.

Without a ruling in his client's favor, Crawford said law enforcement could use tag readers without restrictions or guidelines.

"I think that the ruling leaving license plate readers on the table for now can create real ... violations of (citizen) rights," he said.

Vernon Keenan, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said he agreed with the court's decision in this situation. No matter who was observed driving the car, most officers would have stopped Rodriguez because of the tag reader's alert regarding Sanchez, the same as they would have had an officer merely recognized a wanted tag.

Keenan said whether an officer would continue to question a driver after determining he or she was not the wanted individual would depend on if the fugitive was wanted for a misdemeanor or felony. It would also depend on if the officer was concerned for his safety, according to the court.

Cases against license plate readers have come up before, however, and Crawford expects them to come up again.

"It usually takes the court three to five years to catch up with any technology," he said. "... It's a growing process for everybody."

Concerns from communities and organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union have also stemmed from the data gained and stored by these scanners.

Theresa Payton, chief information officer for former President George W. Bush, said most citizens understand the usefulness of these scanners, but are concerned with where the data is being stored and how long it will be held.

Keenan supports the use of tag readers, but understands public apprehension over data collection.

"I don't think law enforcement is misusing the information," he said. "I think the sensitivity of the public toward law enforcement having this kind of information is the issue."

Terry Norris, executive director of the Georgia Sheriffs' Association, said the advances in tag reader technology have made them useful tools as most hits come from expired registration or outstanding parking tickets.

"Most of police work is routine. I think the wide applicability is going to be routine," he said. "But I think it does have a great impact to help on sensational cases where there's a threat of great danger to the public."

FORCE MULTIPLIER

Athens-Clarke County Police Department has been using license plate readers since the summer of 2012, and Major Mike Hunsinger said these tools serve as a "force multiplier."

"It allows several sets of eyes out there looking for us all the time," he said.

There have not been any negative comments from residents, Hunsinger said, and he hopes to obtain more tag readers.

When a license plate is scanned, the reader stores a photo of the tag as well as the date, time and location of the scan. Because tag readers can scan a few thousand license plates per minute and the majority of tag numbers are not associated with a wanted person, Amber Alert or other police case, the scanned information is simply stored in a database.

That database sometimes proves handy. Some police departments have used archived database information to solve cases, reports scanner manufacturer Vigilant Solutions. In the case of an Amber Alert, for example, an officer can search the vehicle's license plate number and see if it had passed by a scanner recently.

This helps narrow the search and can expedite arrests.

Payton, author of Privacy in the Age of Big Data, believes this perspective creates a "grandma's attic;" too much unused data is held just in case it could be useful. This data, she said, is also vulnerable.

"If you know that all technology is hackable, when you are scanning license plates in an effort to find the bad guy ... we are potentially creating a database for them," she said.

Brian Hauss, from the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, said the tag reader databases pose a threat for law enforcement abuse as well as criminal abuse. The scanned information could be used to track a person's habits or location, he said, and is probably not protected by high-security measures.

Even though the readers do not provide a driver's name, that information is tied to a license plate number through public records.

"All you need is access to driver records, and it's easy from there," Hauss said.

Getting information from scanners for police use could be as easy as an open records request, he said.

Athens police's Hunsinger said data from his department's tag readers is stored in a database for a restricted amount of time, but access to this scanner information is useful when the police department works with cases outside of the county.

HOW LONG IS TOO LONG?

"As part of our involvement in (Vigilant Solutions') system, we have the ability to search not only our databases, but also their network of license plate readers throughout the country," he said.

Although some companies and police departments have set restrictions for database management, Keenan said a wider-spread standard needs to be set.

"There is no uniformity in how long the information is retained which is the central issue here," he said.

A solution to this issue will come from conversations with law enforcement and legislators, Payton said.

"I think kind of the big thing here is we're sort of in this gray area with technology," she said. "... Open dialogue is so important with our elected officials."