Baldwin approves license plate readers to combat crime

By: Brian Wellmeier

Photo: Baldwin City Council

As part of an effort to combat crime, Baldwin City Council approved the installation of five license plate readers during its regular meeting Tuesday, Feb. 17. The devices will be funded by two private companies rather than the city.

The license plate reader systems, designed by Flock Safety, allow law enforcement agencies to enter license plate numbers and receive automated alerts regarding the whereabouts of a vehicle’s driver.

Each of the five cameras costs $3,000, with an additional $800 installation fee per device. After installation, the ongoing cost will be $3,000 per camera annually, according to Baldwin Police Chief Chris Jones.

Local manufacturer SteelCell will finance three of the cameras through a donation, city officials said. The remaining two will be funded by the vendor that operates Baldwin’s speed zone cameras under a prior agreement.

“The city won’t pay at all for the (cameras),” Jones said.

Jones said data collected by the cameras can be stored for up to 30 days. However, he noted that authorities within the department can “flag it” to retain information longer when necessary.

“Possible locations” for the cameras, Jones said, could range from “somewhere in the neighborhood of Duncan Bridge Road and Sunset Oaks, east of GA 365," on U.S. 441 coming north from Banks County, and along Industrial Boulevard.

Privacy concerns, city response

License plate readers have become increasingly common across the United States, particularly in urban areas, and are widely used by law enforcement agencies to identify suspects and investigate crimes.

As the technology expands, organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union have raised privacy concerns.

“The information captured by the readers – including the license plate number…the date, time and location of every scan – is being collected and sometimes pooled into regional sharing systems. As a result, enormous databases of innocent motorists’ location information are growing rapidly,” the group’s website states. “This information is often retained for years or even indefinitely, with few or no restrictions to protect privacy rights.”

In a 34-page report, the ACLU states that license plate reader data may be stored in centralized databases that can be used to “plot all of the plate reads associated with a particular vehicle to trace a person’s past movements.”

“Longer retention periods and more widespread sharing allow law enforcement agents to assemble the individual puzzle pieces of where we have been over time into a single, high-resolution image of our lives,” the report states. “This constant monitoring and permanent recording violates our privacy in a number of respects.”

Photo 2: Assistant Police Chief Justin Ferguson speaks to council

Jones and Baldwin Assistant Police Chief Justin Ferguson said they believe the benefits of the technology far outweigh any potential drawbacks. Both officials emphasized that the cameras are not intended to infringe on civil liberties.

“It’s been proven in the Supreme Court that there’s no reasonable expectation of privacy on a public roadway,” Jones said. “And the benefits outweigh any negatives I could possibly think of…the main use is for investigative purposes.”

Ferguson said the Baldwin Police Department will “do their due diligence” and “restrict access” to the system to administrators only.

“We’re not going to allow every officer to go in and search any tag they want for any reason,” he said.

Baldwin Mayor Doug Faust echoed the department’s support for the cameras, saying the technology can significantly improve response times in active investigations.

“It makes something so much more immediate,” Faust said. “If you’re responding to someone who has been robbed or someone who has been hurt or a hit and run, it’s going to make it so much more immediate.”