License Plate Reader Helped Find Va. Shooter, But They're Not Widespread In Local Law Enforcement
By Ian Bush
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) --- Virginia State Police say a trooper spotted the suspect in the shooting of a reporter and cameraman working for WDBJ-TV with the help of an automatic license plate reader, which flagged his tag amid the hundreds of cars on the road. Cops in our area use the devices, but privacy concerns have kept them from becoming ubiquitous.
License plate readers, or LPRs, can be installed along highways or mounted on patrol cars. They use high-speed cameras to help police find that needle in the haystack.
"They can grab or capture images of hundreds of license plates in an hour, and they can throw every one of those through a computer that can search for either particular ones that you're looking for, or can compare that to a database of wanted or stolen vehicles," says New Jersey State Police Captain Stephen Jones.
Jones says LPRs also can help in child abduction or missing persons cases when cars are involved. But the readers are not widespread in the Garden State.
They're even less so in Pennsylvania. While some local departments -- like Upper Moreland, Montgomery County -- use them, only one state police unit has just a handful of the devices.
"When you're collecting mass amounts of data like that, it's really important that it gets used properly and stored properly," Jones says. "Here in NJ, we abide by the attorney general's guidelines -- there are very strict protocols on how that data is to be used, for what purposes, and how long it's stored."
The American Civil Liberties Union argues the laws for doing so rarely land on the side of protecting privacy rights.
