San Francisco's Continued Reliance on License Plate Tracking Criticized

• The EFF criticizes San Francisco for maintaining its Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) surveillance program despite significant civil liberty concerns.
• New city policies fail to implement necessary safeguards, such as mandatory warrants for data searches or strict data deletion requirements.
• Experts warn that constant location tracking facilitates police abuse, including stalking and data sharing with federal immigration authorities.

Limitations of the New Policy

• Lack of Judicial Oversight: The current policy does not require a warrant or showing of probable cause before police search stored location data; incident numbers are insufficient substitutes for judicial authorization.
• Data Retention Issues: The policy lacks a clear mandate to delete collected data, merely requiring a transfer from vendor to city servers. The EFF advocates for rapid deletion to protect the privacy of residents' movements.
• Insufficient Accountability: There are no requirements for officers to justify searches in their own words, a standard practice that has proven effective in identifying abuse elsewhere.

Broader Implications

• Systemic Risk: The EFF argues that ALPR systems inherently create dangerous, permanent records of individual activities—such as where people work, worship, or seek care—that cannot be mitigated by simple procedural tweaks.
• Community Demand: While many jurisdictions have terminated ALPR contracts due to these risks, San Francisco continues to authorize the use of technologies from vendors like Flock Safety, Motorola, and Axon.