Real Deal: How Police Use License Plate Reader Information
The short version: CBS6 Albany revisits the ACLU/NYCLU's push to force local police to disclose how ALPR data is collected, stored, and shared, and the answers are still murky.
Our Take
Credit to CBS6 Albany for putting a number on what a lot of people don't grasp: a single reader can log up to 1,800 plates a minute. That's not 'catching a stolen car,' that's a dragnet running on every commuter, churchgoer, and ex who drives past. The NYCLU's Melanie Trimble is asking the obvious question departments never volunteer an answer to — who actually sees this data, how long does it sit in a database, and what stops it from becoming a permanent movement log on innocent people.
This is the same fight playing out in county after county across the country: police adopt Flock or similar ALPR systems quietly, retention policies get written loosely or not at all, and access controls are whatever the vendor's default settings happen to be. Absent hard state law or a records fight like NYCLU is waging here, 'public safety tool' just means 'unaudited surveillance network' with better PR.
If your town has these cameras up and nobody's told you the retention period or who can query the plates, that's worth pressing on. Check our map to see what's already been documented near you, and if you want to push back locally, our take-action guide walks through how to file the same kinds of records requests the NYCLU is making here.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of CBS6 Albany, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.