Protecting Liberty and Travel from Excessive Surveillance (PLATES) Act
Draft Disclaimer
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Summary
Stop turning license plates into tracking devices. State and local governments are using advanced surveillance technology to create detailed records of citizens’ lives. Automated license plate readers are being used to collect data on drivers who are not suspected of any wrongdoing, transforming every license plate into a de facto GPS transmitter that can be used to track the location of any vehicle, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Act protects Fourth Amendment rights in our property without sacrificing legitimate public-safety tools by banning the retention of location and vehicle records without particularized reasonable suspicion. Unless reasonable suspicion can be established, retained information must be permanently deleted, and individuals may recover damages and attorney’s fees for violations of this Act.Model Policy
Section 1. Definitions. As used in this Act:
(a) “Automated license plate reader” or “ALPR” means a device that uses image-processing technology to capture an image of a motor vehicle or license plate and convert the image into computer-readable data concerning the license plate, the vehicle, and the time and location of the capture.
(b) “Government agent” means any employee or representative of the state of this state or any political subdivision thereof acting in an official capacity.
(c) “Government entity” means any agency, department, office, board, commission, or political subdivision of this state, or any private party acting as an agent or contractor of such an entity for purposes of collecting, retaining, or providing access to data produced by an ALPR.
(d) “Hotlist” means a list, compiled and maintained by a government entity and updated at least daily, of license plate numbers limited to plates of stolen vehicles; plates associated with missing persons, including an Amber or Silver Alert; plates associated with persons named in an outstanding arrest warrant; or plates associated with a specific, documented felony investigation.
Section 2. Deletion Of Illegally Retained Data.
(a) No government agent may retain data produced by an ALPR concerning a motor vehicle or license plate, including the license plate number, date, time, and location of the capture, unless:
- the data matches an entry on a hotlist at the time of capture or within the period set forth is subsection (b); or
- a government agent completes a written certification, under penalty of perjury, that links the data to a specific reported incident, active investigation, or to particularized reasonable suspicion concerning the vehicle or person.
(b) All data produced by an ALPR that is not covered under subsection (a) shall be permanently deleted as soon as it is determined that it is not covered under subsection (a), but in no case later than 24 hours after the moment of capture.
(c) Nothing in this Act restricts the real-time observation of public places, real-time comparison of observed information against a hotlist, or the generation of alerts based on hotlist matches.
(d) Creation of a record solely to perform a real-time hotlist comparison, followed by immediate deletion of any non-matching record, is not prohibited retention.
Section 3. Permitted Retention After Reasonable Suspicion Is Established.
(a) Unless exigent circumstances make it infeasible, before a government agent uses a retained ALPR match as the basis for a stop or arrest, the agent shall complete a written certification, under penalty of perjury, identifying the hotlist entry or the facts supporting particularized suspicion.
(b) Retention of ALPR data may continue only for so long as the hotlist match remains active or the underlying investigation remains open and the data remains relevant.
(c) Upon resolution of the hotlist match or investigation, the data collected by an ALPR shall be deleted within 10 days unless it is used in a prosecution or a court order authorizes further retention in connection with that same investigation or prosecution.
(d) A government entity may seek a court order authorizing retention of data obtained by an ALPR beyond the periods set forth in this section upon a showing of particularized reasonable suspicion related to an ongoing investigation or prosecution. Such order shall be narrowly tailored in time and scope.
Section 4. Access, Logging, and Audit Requirements.
(a) A government entity using ALPR’s to collect and retain data shall establish and maintain an online public access log which shall include:
- the identity of the government employee accessing the data;
- the date and time of access;
- the specific purpose and legal basis for the access; and
- any case or incident number associated with the access of the data.
(b) All public access logs shall be retained for a minimum of three years and shall be available to the public, criminal defendants, civil litigants, and oversight bodies in accordance with applicable discovery and public-records laws, subject only to narrowly drawn investigative exemptions that do not defeat the purposes of this Act.
(c)
- A government entity that maintains data captured and retained by an ALPR shall conduct an independent audit of its access logs and retention practices at least once every twelve months.
- Audit results shall be made available to the Legislature, and with appropriate redactions, published in a conspicuous location on the government entity’s website.
Section 5. Sharing and Third-party Restrictions.
(a) A government entity may share data retained under Section 3 only with another government entity that is bound by retention, access, and logging rules at least as protective as those in this Act, and only for a purpose permitted by Section 2(a).
(b) No government entity shall sell, transfer, or convey data retained under Section 3 to any private, non-governmental third party for any purpose, except as required by a valid court order.
(c) Bulk export or bulk access of data is prohibited except pursuant to a court order.
(d) Any private vendor that operates a database containing data collected by an ALPR on behalf of a government entity shall be contractually bound to the retention, deletion, access, logging, and non-sale requirements of this Act. Title or license claims in vendor contracts shall not defeat the ownership or remedial rights of the individuals whose identifiers or effects form the content of the data retained and no government entity shall contract with a private vendor that purports to retain a license, perpetual or otherwise, in data collected by an ALPR on behalf of the government entity.
(e) A government entity may obtain ALPR data from a private party only so long as the government entity’s access to and retention of the data is consistent with this Act.
Section 6. Certified Destruction and Verification.
(a) Government entities shall implement technical and administrative measures that ensure permanent deletion of all data required to be deleted under Section 2(b), Section 3(c), and Section 6(e) of this Act.
(b) Deletion of data collected by an ALPR shall be irreversible and shall extend to all copies, backups, derivative analytics, and exports under the entity’s control or the control of its vendors.
(c) Upon request by an individual who alleges that data concerning that individual or that individual’s vehicle was retained in violation of this Act, the government entity shall certify in writing within thirty (30) days that the data, including all known copies, has been deleted or was never obtained.
(d) All data retained by a government entity subject to the provisions of this Act that does not qualify for retention under Section 3 shall be deleted by the government entity retaining the data no later than seven days after the effective date of this Act.
(e) Data already in existence that does not qualify for retention under Section 3 shall be deleted no later than thirty days after the effective date of this Act. This subsection does not require deletion of data that a criminal defendant is entitled to obtain in a pending or completed case.
Section 7. Enforcement and Remedies.
(a) Any person aggrieved by a violation of this Act may bring a civil action in a court of competent jurisdiction for:
- declaratory and injunctive relief, including an order requiring certified deletion of unlawfully retained data and all traceable products thereof;
- actual damages or statutory damages of not less than $1,000 per violation, whichever is greater; and
- reasonable attorney fees and costs.
(b) Any data retained or accessed in violation of this Act, and any evidence derived therefrom, shall be inadmissible in any criminal or civil proceeding, except in a prosecution or civil action for violation of this Act itself.
(c) The Attorney General may bring a civil action for declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent ongoing or future violations of this Act and may recover civil penalties of up to $10,000 per intentional violation, plus costs and attorney fees.
(d) No political subdivision of this state may enact or enforce any ordinance, policy, contract, or regulation that permits retention, access, or sharing of data produced by an ALPR in a manner less protective of individual rights than this Act.
(e) A private vendor of a governmental entity that knowingly retains, sells, or provides access to data in violation of this Act or its contractual obligations under Section 5(d) shall be subject to the same civil remedies as a governmental entity.