SurveillanceVirginia lawmakers mull limiting police use of license plate readers

Some Virginia lawmakers are planning to propose legislation which will limit the police use of license plate readers (LPRs). The state currently has no laws restricting how police collect or store license plate data gathered by LPRs. Last year, then-Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said he believed Virginia State Police should be restricted from capturing and storing license plate data outside of a specific, ongoing criminal investigation, but for now, police departments across the state have adopted their own measures.

LPRs can capture up to 1,800 plates per minute and can store the data, which includes time and location, at a central database.

Alexandria Times reports that Democratic State Senator Chap Petersen of Fairfax and Republican Delegate Richard Anderson of Woodbridge, founders of the Ben Franklin Liberty Caucus, plan to file the proposed legislation in the 2015 legislative session. Other lawmakers in the state have yet to voice their opinion on the matter. “The speaker understands this is an important and complex issue,” said Matthew Moran, spokesman for Republican speaker of the House Bill Howell. “He looks forward to studying the issue more in the future and finding the best course for the commonwealth.”

Petersen wants to take a year to gather information then determine what best practices could be offered as an alternative to not having a statewide LPR policy. “My intention is, if we don’t ban LPRs, at least restrict them pretty severely in the sense that we should limit them to either being used as part of an active manhunt, or where there’s an actual target, or a warrant or something like that,” he told the Times. Petersen has not decided how long law enforcement units should be allowed to store license plate data obtained from LPRs. “My purpose again is to really limit it, so LPRs can be used as an investigative tool but can’t just go and collect data randomly,” Petersen said. Scrutinizing residents without reasonable suspicion of a crime is un American he argued.

Petersen and Anderson both want state legislators to approve a simplified statewide policy to avoid confusion between various municipalities. “I want it to be the same in Norfolk as it is in Narrows,” Anderson said. “In Norfolk and Narrows, I want a consistent, easily understood policy — easily understood by law enforcement and easily understood by the general public, which means non-attorneys like me ought to write the law.”

If state legislators agree on a proposed bill limiting the police use of LPRs, Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe would still have the final decision in passing the bill. “I will probably want to work with the governor’s office, too,” Anderson said. “I’m trying to keep my finger on the pulse beat of how they view this because, in the end, it’s going to be the governor who is going to fix his signature to whatever we send him.”