OKLAHOMA CITY (April 15, 2016) – Yesterday, the Oklahoma House passed a bill that would put limitations on the storage and sharing of information collected by Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) by law enforcement in the state, and place significant roadblocks in the way of a federal program using states to help track the location of millions of everyday people through pictures of their license plates.

Sen. Nathan Dahm introduced Senate Bill 1144 (SB1144) in February. The legislation would restrict the use of ALPRs to specific law enforcement functions, and place strict limits on the storage and sharing of any data collected by such systems.

SB1144 passed the House by a 51-27 vote. Last month, it unanimously passed the Senate 45-0. Since the House made some technical amendments to the bill, it will now need to go back to the Senate for concurrence.

The bill’s strength lies in its strict limits on data retention and sharing. Government agencies would be prohibited from sharing this data, or retaining data for more than 14 days without a warrant, a court issued preservation order or if the information is part of an ongoing investigation provided the data is a confirmed match to an alert. Any data retained as part of an ongoing investigation must be immediately destroyed at the conclusion of the investigation.

SB1144 expressly prohibits agencies from using or sharing ALPR data for any purposes beyond the specific law enforcement applications enumerated in the law. This would prevent sharing of data with any agency not directly involved in an investigation.

The bill also stipulates that any data entered manually into the system by an officer must be purged at the end of his shift.

Finally, the legislation mandates strict reporting requirements for any agency using ALPRs.

Passage of SB1144 would prevent the state from creating permanent databases using information collected by ALPRs, and would make it highly unlikely that such data would end up in federal databases.

IMPACT ON FEDERAL PROGRAMS

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the federal government, via the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) tracks the location of millions of vehicle. They’ve engaged in this for nearly eight years, all without a warrant, or even public notice of the policy.

State and local law enforcement agencies operate most of these tracking systems, paid for by federal grant money. The DEA then taps into the local database to track the whereabouts of millions of people – for the simple act of driving – without having to operate a huge network itself.

Since a majority of federal license plate tracking data comes from state and local law enforcement, passage of SB1144 would take a major step toward blocking that program from continuing in Oklahoma. The feds can’t access data that doesn’t exist.

“No data means no federal license plate tracking program,” Tenth Amendment Center founder and executive director Michael Boldin said.

Law enforcement generally configures ALPRs to store the photograph, the license plate number, and the date, time, and location of vehicles. But according to newly disclosed records obtained by the ACLU via a Freedom of Information Act request, the DEA is also captures photographs of drivers and their passengers.

According to the ACLU:

“One internal 2009 DEA communication stated clearly that the license plate program can provide “the requester” with images that “may include vehicle license plate numbers (front and/or rear), photos of visible vehicle occupants [redacted] and a front and rear overall view of the vehicle.” Clearly showing that occupant photos are not an occasional, accidental byproduct of the technology, but one that is intentionally being cultivated, a 2011 email states that the DEA’s system has the ability to store “up to 10 photos per vehicle transaction including 4 occupant photos.”

With the FBI rolling out facial a nationwide recognition program last fall, and the federal government building biometric databases, the fact that the feds can potentially access stored photographs of drivers and passengers, along with detailed location data, magnifies the privacy concerns surrounding ALPRs.

Passage of SB1144 would represent a good first step toward putting a big dent in federal plans to continue location tracking, and expanding its facial recognition program. The less data the state makes available to the federal government, the less ability they have to track people in Oklahoma.