The bill's sponsor predicts the state could net "upwards of $15 million" in new revenue, but the ACLU of Rhode Island says the legislation presents "extreme risks to privacy."

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Fast-moving legislation that would allow the state to use electronic license-plate readers to nab "out-of-state drivers'' traveling Rhode Island highways without insurance is slated for a vote by a key House committee on Tuesday despite strenuous "privacy" concerns.

The bill's sponsor was the only person to speak in favor of the bill at a sparsely attended House Corporations Committee hearing on Feb. 9 that took place the same day public attention was keenly focused on State House action on Governor Raimondo's controversial, leadership-backed truck tolls.

Rep. Robert Jacquard, D-Cranston, predicted the state could net "upwards of $15 million" in new revenue by hiring a private company to install the technology in police cars — or perhaps, on gantries — to ID and send violation notices to out-of-state drivers who have been caught driving on Rhode Island roads without insurance.

"This is a public safety issue,'' Jacquard told colleagues.

But insurance industry lobbyists oppose the bill. The ACLU of Rhode Island's Hillary Davis cited "extreme risks to privacy." The state police, the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Transportation have taken no position on the bill and the potential for mounting the plate-readers on the new tolling gantries.

"These are automated license plate readers,'' Davis said. "What they do is they read the license plate of every single car ... at very high rates of speed and across numbers of lanes of traffic. ... So while the goal may be to get an individual from out of state who [is] driving without insurance or without registration, they are, in fact, capturing the data on every single person on the road ... your license plate, your registration and the time, date and GPS location of where your car is.

"As a result, they can actually create a real-time image of everything you do in a day. ... If somebody wants to know where your kids go to school, it's pretty easy to find out. If somebody wants to know if you went to Whole Foods last Tuesday, it's pretty easy to find out."

On Monday, Jacquard said he would be open to an amendment. But "I don't believe it is a concern,'' he said, because the bill requires almost instantaneous destruction of data that does not lead to a traffic citation.

Jacquard said he introduced the bill last year and again this year on his own out of a belief that it would help the state raise needed revenue. (At one point, former Rep. Ray Rickman was hired to lobby for a company pitching a similar bill, and at another, former House Speaker John Harwood testified in front of Connecticut legislators on the $50-million money-making potential the technology could have for their state.)

Last year's version of Jacquard's bill cleared the Rhode Island House on a 70-0 vote on June 23, but never made it through the Senate. The leading advocate last year was an entity that calls itself the "National Public Safety Consortium" that had no known Rhode Island lobbyist.

The 2016 version would create "an automatic license plate recognition system to electronically capture license plate images in two seconds or less and non-invasively attempt verification of the insurance and when possible, the registration status of the interstate vehicle."

The plate readers would be "fully interfaced'' with both the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System and the Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles.

If the vehicle is covered by insurance and properly registered, the bill says, "the automatic license plate recognition system shall erase the record of the vehicle's license plate within one minute."

It is not clear how Rhode Island expects to make money, but Jacquard believes reciprocity agreements will require fines to be paid here and in the driver's home state before reinstatement of a suspended license or registration.

Approval of Jacquard's bill would mark Rhode Island's second venture into the uninsured motorist arena. A 2013 law allowed the state to hire MVSolutions to ID uninsured R.I. motorists by matching "active registration information with active insurance policies.'' Lawmakers anticipated $4.1 million in new revenue from the reinstatement fees and new taxes. The state's take so far has been $380,000, with the company getting another $56,150.

— kgregg@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7078

On Twitter: @kathyprojo

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