City Council Approves Use of License Plate Technology

The Fountain Valley Police Department soon will be deploying state-of-the-art technology that will allow police officers to find and recover stolen vehicles, locate missing children and adults, and track down people who are wanted or have outstanding warrants—all through the photographing of license plates.

By a 4-1 vote Tuesday night, the Fountain Valley City Council approved the purchase of Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) units through a federal grant from the Urban Area Security Initiative obtained by the Anaheim Police Department. The Anaheim department will be purchasing 50 of these units from a private company, which they are offering to every city in Orange County, including Fountain Valley.

“I’m glad the council supports the Automated License Plate Readers,” said Fountain Valley Police Chief Daniel Llorens, who spoke before the council at its regular bi-weekly meeting at City Hall. “It’s technology that already is available to us through private industry, and I think it will be useful to us as advertised. We’re going to be able to do some good work in recreating a crime scene by placing cars in locations.”

ALPR technology has been developed over the last decade and is used by many jurisdictions, including the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and throughout the Midwest and East Coast, including Washington DC.

Two infrared cameras facing forward and two backward are mounted on top of a police car’s light bar to scan license plates. Information is then sent to a centralized computer and compared against known stolen vehicles, vehicles used in the commission of crimes or AMBER alerts. If there is a match, the officer is alerted and then can make an enforcement stop or investigate further.

However, Mayor Pro-Tem Mark McCurdy, who cast the only dissenting vote, said he was troubled about the infringement of Fourth Amendment rights and how often the data could be regulated by the police department.

“I am concerned about this new technology in how it relates to the storage of this data and protecting people’s privacy,” McCurdy said.

Chief Llorens reported that the information gathered by the ALPR units would be stored on the vendor’s database for two years and then erased. He also said that the department had established “significant safeguards” that would prohibit officers or investigators from making inquiries about where a particular vehicle was at a certain place and time unless there was justification. That information then would be audited every three to four months by the department’s lieutenant just like all other data.

Maybe the best part for council members is that the initial cost for the first three years is covered by the Urban Area grant. After that time, the police department would have enough data available to make a definitive determination as to its operational worth.

Llorens said he hopes to have one, possibly two units installed on Fountain Valley police cars within the next couple of months.

“I think this technology could prove to be very valuable,” Councilman Steve Nagel said. “If criminals know that we have it and are using it, they could select a different area to go to and not be around Fountain Valley.”

The only other significant news coming from Tuesday night’s meeting was the City Council voting 4-1 to withdraw from the Association of California Cities—Orange County (ACC-OC) after one year as charter members of the non-profit organization. Only Councilman Larry Crandall voted to remain part of the 25-city association.

Council members cited concerns over the elimination of the state’s redevelopment agency and the city’s desire to remain within budget for fiscal 2012 after three straight years of deficits as to its decision to reluctantly withdraw from the group.

The ACC-OC serves elected officials and municipal staff on educational resources, on good public policy in the county and state, and as catalysts for regional collaboration. Council members said they hoped to continue using the organization on a piecemeal basis and possibly return as full-time members in the future.