Report 2019-118 Recommendation 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 for Legislative Action
To better protect individual's privacy and to help ensure that local law enforcement agencies structure their ALPR programs in a manner that supports accountability for proper database use, the Legislature should amend state law to establish a maximum data retention period for ALPR images. The Legislature should also establish a maximum data retention period for data or lists, such as hot lists, that are used to link persons of interest with license plate images.
Description of Legislative Action
SB 210 (Wiener, 2021) would have required an ALPR operator's security procedures and practices to include an annual audit to review ALPR end-user searches during the previous year and, where the ALPR operator or ALPR end-user is a public agency and not an airport authority, the destruction of all ALPR information that does not match information on a hot list within 24 hours. This bill also would have required the ALPR operator or ALPR end-user, if they access or provide access to ALPR information, to annually review ALPR end-user searches during the previous year to assess user searches, determine if all searches were in compliance with the usage and privacy policy, and, if the ALPR operator or ALPR end-user is a public agency and not an airport authority, confirm that all ALPR data that does not match hot list information has been routinely destroyed in 24 hours or less. This bill died in the Senate.
- Legislative Action Current As-of: February 2022
California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Legislation Proposed But Not Enacted
Description of Legislative Action
SB 210 (Wiener) would require usage and privacy policies implemented by an ALPR system operator or an ALPR end user include a requirement that ALPR data that does not match a hot list be destroyed within 24 hours.
- Legislative Action Current As-of: February 2021
California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Legislation Introduced
Description of Legislative Action
SB 1143 would prohibit the usage and privacy policies implemented by an ALPR operator or an ALPR end-user from including a length of time longer than two weeks that ALPR information will be retained.
- Legislative Action Current As-of: August 2020