Council debates data-retention period for license plate reader pilot program

City Council is negotiating how long the Austin Police Department should retain data from dashboard camera license plate readers – weighing civil liberty protections against potential crime-solving benefits – in preparation for a pilot program using the technology. 

Council defunded APD’s license plate reader program following mass protests against racial injustice and police violence in 2020. Members revisited the issue last fall, passing a resolution authorizing the pilot and directing APD to update its license plate reader policy, including reducing its data-retention period from one year to 30 days. 

More recently, District 5 Council Member Ryan Alter proposed an amendment further limiting the data-retention period to seven days, sparking debate on the dais during Tuesday’s work session.

“I’m concerned that if we don’t make a change to the 30-day policy, we will have zero (license plate reader) data because we will not have this program,” Alter said, alluding to community pushback. He added that the seven-day period would still grant APD access during the early investigation of eligible cases. 

Initially, Council envisioned a limited pilot, with around 20 cameras. Since last fall, however, city staff have changed course, proposing a contract with a different third-party vendor to replace APD’s entire fleet of dashboard cameras, each with a built-in license plate reader.

District 4 Council Member Chito Vela echoed Ryan Alter’s concerns in light of this change.

“The reality is that the civil liberty implications, I think, can become more serious when you’re capturing … just about every vehicle in the city of Austin and establishing, essentially, the whereabouts of every person in the city of Austin and putting it in a police database,” Vela said. 

Others vehemently disagreed, saying the seven-day period would stymie the pilot program and police investigations alike. 

District 6 Council Member Mackenzie Kelly proposed a compromise of 15 days, which Alter rejected.

“I still firmly believe that this is a tool that the community needs, and the more time that we have, the more data we will have in order to see if (the pilot) is effective or not,” Kelly said. 

APD Assistant Chief Jeff Greenwalt told Council that a longer retention period comes in handy during prolonged investigations where it takes weeks for a witness to report a license plate number or where historical license plate reader data could help triangulate a suspect’s location.

He provided three examples of such cases. One case, of a serial rapist in 2016, spanned several months and ultimately was solved after one of the last victims provided a vehicle description and license plate number that matched one in APD’s database. 

“We just don’t know ahead of time if seven days is gonna capture this data or if it’s not going to capture the date,” he said. 

Greenwalt added that APD’s preference was for a one-year retention period but that the department had agreed to a compromise last fall as a condition of the pilot. 

“We feel like 30 days is what the citizens of Austin deserve,” he said. “We feel like 30 days is what our citizens need in order to solve the crimes that they have.”

Mayor Pro Tem Paige Ellis and District 10 Council Member Alison Alter agreed. 

“I’m afraid we would miss the information if we stop with seven (days),” Ellis said. “We won’t have the data about, ‘Would we have caught it on day eight or 14 or … 20, whatever that number would be?’”

Alison Alter also pointed to long-standing staffing shortages at APD, including in its sex crimes unit, and the department’s need for resources to help bridge these gaps. 

“We have put in an enormous amount of safeguards,” she said of APD’s revised license plate reader policy. “And I think we need to try this now.”

The Public Safety Commission voted unanimously on May 15 to recommend Council approve the pilot program so long as it heeds these safeguards and other recommendations from the Office of Police Oversight, including that rules are implemented to ensure effective audits and safe handling of license plate reader data by APD staff.

Council is scheduled to take up the license plate reader data-retention policy amendment as well as a resolution directing staff to contract with the third-party vendor to replace APD’s dashcam fleet, using products with built-in license plate reader technology, at its meeting Thursday. 

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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