Report 2019-118 Recommendation 34 Responses

Report 2019-118: Automated License Plate Readers: To Better Protect Individuals' Privacy, Law Enforcement Must Increase Its Safeguards for the Data It Collects (Release Date: February 2020)

Recommendation #34 To: Marin County Sheriff's Department

To minimize the privacy risk of retaining ALPR images for a long period of time, Marin should include in its ALPR policy a retention period for data or lists, such as hot lists, used to link persons of interest with license plate images, and create necessary processes to ensure that those data unrelated to ongoing investigations are periodically removed from its ALPR system.

1-Year Agency Response

The policy has been revised and/or updated. The new policy number is 429. The current policy has been provided to you via the process for submitting supporting documents.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

6-Month Agency Response

The policy has been updated to read, "The information collected by the ALPR system should be stored for a minimum of one year (Government Code section 34090.6) and shall be maintained for two years. Thereafter, ALPR data should be purged unless it has become, or it is reasonable to believe it will become, evidence in a criminal or civil action or is subject to a discovery request or other lawful action to produce records. In those circumstances the applicable data should be downloaded from the server onto portable media and booked into evidence. This information includes hotlist data which must be manually deleted by the user at the conclusion of their investigation."

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

60-Day Agency Response

The Marin Sheriff's Department did not provide a 60-day response.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2019-118

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.