A Minneapolis municipal committee is now advocating on behalf of local police for a change in Minnesota’s state law concerning the right to access data collected from license plate readers (LPRs). For now, the city maintains a massive database collected from its 11 LPR readers that hold each license plate number seen, along with the corresponding GPS location data, date, and time for the previous 90 days.

In a meeting Thursday, the Committee of the Whole Agenda heard discussions regarding a new proposal from the city police department that would restrict access to license plate reader records. Under the proposed rules, only the police would have access to the entire database, and a non-police individual would only be able to access the data that pertained to his or her car. Currently, a rather liberal open records state law known as the Data Practices Act makes all government data public by default. If approved by the Minneapolis city council, such changes could be put forward to the state legislature as soon as next year.

As we reported earlier this year, license plate readers are largely on an unchecked rise throughout the United States. Millions of new records are collected by law enforcement agencies on a daily basis, often with little oversight.

Pending requests for the entire 2.5 million record database

The new proposal comes after increased scrutiny over the practice in Minneapolis, after a local reporter managed to track the mayor’s movements in August 2012 by filing a request with the police.

"We do have a concern of the way the data could be used," Sgt. William Palmer, the public information officer for the Minneapolis Police Department, told Ars.

"I don't know that as of yet we've had a case where someone misused the information—but taking proactive steps to prevent a stalking case or a domestic violence case where a partner was able to figure out where their previous partner's vehicle was located is a concern to us."

He added that there were currently five requests—including from university researchers—pending for the entire database of 2.5 million records. Under the law, anyone, regardless of whether they’re a city or state resident, can file such a request. The department continues to get approximately four requests on individual plates per week.

One local privacy activist, Rich Neumeister, told Ars that he’s long been against the collection and 90-day retention period. But, he said, it should be all or nothing—either no one should have access to the data to begin with (not even the police), or it should be open for everyone to scrutinize.

"If it is public, people can see patterns, people can start asking questions, whatever it may be, of the mayor or anybody," he said. "If the state is going to keep it for a long period of time, I believe then the public has a right for public accountability and transparency."