Officials move to keep ICE away from L.A. County license plate data

Los Angeles County is moving to add more controls about how federal immigration officials can access data that can be used to monitor where people driving on any day.

District auditors on Tuesday movementSupervisor was introduced by Hilda Solis to ensure the supervision of the data collected by law enforcement officers known as automatic plate readers.

Already illegal To share information collected from plate readers in California for local law enforcement officers without orders to share with federal agencies such as US immigration and customs conservation.

However, after a summer exile, the district supervisors decided to apply more transparency from the sheriff department and when the agency wanted plate data.

The amendment will form a clear policy that the data is “clearly required” or a order according to the law or that migratory officials can not be çılmış disclosure, transferred or present in any other way ”.

“In a place like Los Angeles County, where residents are dependent on cars for almost every aspect of daily life, they need to feel safe to travel from one place to another without fear that people are shared to monitor, hide and violate their secrets,” he says.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger did not vote for one. Barger spokesman Helen Chavez, the supervisor voted against the movement, because the district is a invoice This limits the time in which most law enforcement officers can keep plate data up to 60 days. Devlet The law enforcement officers opposed this bill, dedi he said.

COUNTRY, LAW APPLICATION The agencies use cameras to collect data about millions of vehicles, reviewing records for clues to help find stolen vehicles, criminal suspects or missing people.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Department, said in a statement, Motorola Vigilan’dan roughly 366 fixed licensed license plate readers and contract cities and non -companies in the area of ​​476, he said. The 89 mobile system from Motorola is mounted on patrolling vehicles in these areas.

The department said his policy forbids the platter readers from platter readers already known as Alpr.

“LASD shares other law enforcement officers and Alpr data only within the scope of an inter -organizational contract that requires all parties to collect, access, use, use and disclose data in accordance with the valid laws,” he said. “LASD has no existing agreement with any federal agency for Alp data sharing.”

Deputy Secretary of the Department of Interior Security Ticia McLaughlin said in a statement that the agency has more than one source on its fingertips to enable the implementation of the federal law in Los Angeles and all over the country.

McLughlin, “These shelter politicians’ cooperation with ice cooperation of the sheriff department is reckless and will not prevent the application of the ice,” he said.

Southern California law enforcement officers – including officials in LAPD and San Diego, Orange and Riverside districts – are accused of changing the state law by sharing the plate data with federal agencies. A recent report Residents When the local police question the databases for federal agencies, records of anti -Survan group Oakland Privacy Records, which show more than 100 examples in a single month.

“When you collect this data, it’s really hard to control, C Catherine Crump said. manager UC Berkeley Technology and Public Policy Clinic. “After sharing your data with Meta or Google, it is not different, they will pack your data again and sell it to advertisers, and you have no idea which advertising companies have your data.”

Even if the Board falls to data sharing, defenders say it is almost impossible to make sure that federal agents are banned from plate data in La County.

Dave Maass, investigation director For the Electronic Frontier Foundation, private companies operating in California are still collecting and selling the data that ICE can use.

The US Customs and Border Protection is also their own plate readers around Southern California.

Maass said it was difficult to guarantee that the rule was followed by rank and file, even if a district local sheriff department prevented data sharing. Immigration officials may officially transfer a plate number to a deputy with access to the system.

A La County Sheriff department, which is equipped with a plate reader, can scan 1,000 to 1,500 plates per day.

(Los Angeles Times)

“Maybe they’re starting the plate, Ma Maass says. “Unless some public records are published by Los Angeles, we don’t really know who reaches the system.”

Within the scope of the movement on Tuesday, the sheriff department, agencies will have to notify the two district guard groups – the General Inspector Office and the Civil Surveillance Commission – regularly.

“It is very important to have someone a little independent and more aggressively reviewing these searches, Ma said Maass.