The decision comes after a compromise between the Privacy Advisory Commission and the Oakland Police.
In an email to Oakland residents, Mayor Libby Schaaf supported license plate readers, also called ALPRs, saying that it addresses the “need to leverage technology to improve our public safety services.”
KALW spoke with Joe DeVries, the Oakland deputy city administrator & chief privacy officer, about the Police Department’s retention of license plate data. He says that the challenge ahead is weighing people’s civil liberties against the actual effectiveness of ALPR technology. And according to him, the water is murkier compared to other forms of surveillance technology.
“With license plate readers it’s a lot harder because you’re gathering data on everybody who drives past that car. So 99% of those people have done nothing wrong. They’re being surveilled but they’ve done nothing wrong.”
Brian Hofer, also a member of the Privacy Advisory Commission, cited peer reviewed articles that ALPRs are actually not effective in lowering crime.
DeVries says that the usefulness of any longer timeline is still up for debate. And the Oakland Police Department, he added, has a track record of keeping resident’s information for longer than allowed.
Moving forward, the Privacy Advisory Commission will review quarterly reports to measure the usefulness of ALPRs.
