Officials move to keep ICE away from L.A. County license plate data
The County of Los Angeles moves to add more controls on how federal immigration officials can access the data collected by the Sheriff department which can be used to follow where people drive every day.
Comté supervisors voted on Tuesday to approve a movementIntroduced by Hilda Solis supervisor, to strengthen the monitoring of the data collected by the law enforcement systems called automated license plates.
It is already illegal in California for local organizations for applying the law to share information gleaned from license plates readers with federal agencies such as American immigration and the application of customs without a mandate.
But after a summer of increased deportations, the Comté supervisors decided to impose more transparency on the WHO which requests data on the license plates in the Sheriff department – and when the agency provides it.
The change will create a clear policy that the data cannot be “disclosed, transferred or otherwise made available” to immigration officials, except when they are “expressly required” by law or if they have a mandate.
“In a place like the county of Los Angeles, where residents depend on cars for almost all aspects of daily life, people must feel safe from traveling from one place to the other without fear that their movements are followed, stored and shared in a way that violates their private life,” said motion.
The Kathryn Barger supervisor expressed the only vote. Helen Chavez, spokesperson for Barger, said that the supervisor had voted against the motion, because he calls on the county to support a bill that would limit the time that the police can maintain most of the license plate data at 60 days. The police have opposed this bill, she said.
Across the country, law application Agencies use cameras to collect data on millions of vehicles, moving on clues to help find stolen vehicles, crime suspects or missing persons.
The patrol car of a sheriff deputy is equipped with a scan of license plate. The plate numbers are treated instantly and if the owners of registered vehicles are sought for crimes or certain types of crimes, if they are recorded sex offenders or delinquents or if an alert has been issued, an alarm will sound to alert the officer.
(Los Angeles Times)
The Los Angeles County Sheriff Department said in a statement that it had around 366 readers of approved Motorola plates and 476 of herd security in contractual cities and areas not constituted in society. 89 Additional Motorola mobile systems are mounted on vehicles that patrol these areas.
The ministry said that his policy already prohibited him from sharing data from plates readers, known as Alpr, with any entity that “has no lawful goal to receive it”.
“LASD shares ALPR data with other law enforcement organizations only in the context of an inter-agency agreement executed, which obliges all parties to collect, access, use and disclose the data in accordance with the applicable law,” the press release said. “LASD has no current agreement for sharing ALPR data with a federal agency.”
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Ministry of Internal Security, said in a statement that the agency had several resources to its “fingers to ensure that federal law is applied to Los Angeles and throughout the country.”
“The efforts of these sanctuary politicians to prevent the Sheriff department from cooperating with ice are reckless and will not dissuade ice from enforcing the law,” said McLaughlin.
Application services of the Southern California law – including the LAPD and the authorities in the counties of San Diego, Orange and Riverside – were accused of having regularly flouted the law of the State by sharing data on the license plates with federal agents. A recent report of Calm The files mentioned by the anti-surveillance group Oakland Privacy which showed more than 100 cases in a single month when the local police interviewed databases for federal agencies.
“When you collect this data, it is really difficult to control,” said Catherine Crump, director from the UC Berkeley’s Technology & Public Policy Clinic. “It is no different from once you share your data with Meta or Google, they will recondition your data and sell it to advertisers and you have no idea which advertising companies have your data.”
Even with the Data Sharing Board of Directors, the defenders claim that it is almost impossible to guarantee that federal agents are not prohibited from data on the registration plates in the county.
Dave Maass, director of surveys for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the private companies operating in California collect and sell data that ice can use.
Customs and the protection of American borders also have its own license plates in southern California, he said.
Maass said that even if a county prohibited the department of its local sheriff from sharing data with ice, it is difficult to guarantee that the rule is followed by the base. Immigration agents could inform an informable number of plaque to an assistant with access to the system.
A patrol car from the Sheriff department of the county of the equipped with a license plate reader can scan between 1,000 and 1,500 plates per day.
(Los Angeles Times)
“Maybe they run the plate,” said Maass. “Unless there is a version of public files on the side of Los Angeles, we really do not know who accessed the system.”
Under the request adopted on Tuesday, the sheriff service should regularly report which agencies required data on license plates to two county surveillance groups – the Inspector General’s office and the Civil Supervisory Commission.
“Having someone who is somewhat independent and whose role more aggressively supervises the revision of this research is actually a big problem,” said Maass.
