Motorists in Saanich can expect, starting Friday, to have the licence plates of their cars scanned by Saanich police.

The program was suspended in Saanich a year ago today, after Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham raised concerns over police use of personal information collected through the practice.

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Specifically, Denham said police were breaking privacy laws by scanning licence plates and gathering personal information about people who had done nothing to warrant police interest.

“As soon as I read her report, I realized the things she was talking about applied to Saanich police,” said Insp. Trent Edwards said Thursday.

The licence scanners “were recording information for everybody and it’s not necessarily being used for a police purpose, so we shouldn’t be keeping it,” he said.

“I took it out of service while I reviewed her recommendations.”

Edwards said the program remained out of service while he waited to hear that Denham was satisfied with the technical changes.

The RCMP, which administers the automated licence-plate recognition program, made changes to equipment in their own vehicles and those of municipal police departments so that data not needed for police investigations was deleted at the end of each shift.

Victoria police were in direct contact with Denham’s office because a privacy complaint had been lodged against the department. So the Victoria department was aware much earlier than Saanich of a July 4 letter from Denham to Victoria Chief Jamie Graham saying she was satisfied that the matter had been adequately addressed.

Saanich police didn’t get the memo, Edwards said. “In fairness, she didn’t need to tell us,” Edwards said. “Had I been monitoring her website more diligently, I perhaps would have seen it.”

A call to the commissioner’s office brought him up to date.

The Saanich police board gave its approval Tuesday to restart the licence scans, Edwards said.

“As soon as I can write an internal daily order, I’m hoping we can get it back up and running.”

Victoria police continued to use the plate scanners and implemented the technical fix from the RCMP as it became available, said Const. Mike Russell.

smcculloch@timescolonist.com