Georgia officers misuse license plate reader databases. Can they be stopped?

Agencies across metro Atlanta are aware of the issue and have implemented guardrails they say will help prevent inappropriate use. But experts say abuse of the technology is inevitable when so much data is so readily available.

This month, three Cherokee County sheriff’s deputies and a Richmond County deputy were arrested and accused of using the departments’ license plate recognition databases for non-law enforcement purposes. In November, the then-police chief in Braselton resigned after the GBI said he misused LPR systems to harass and stalk multiple people.

Similar cases outside metro Atlanta include a Coffee County deputy accused of misusing license plate data and stalking, and an Echols County Sheriff’s Office secretary who allegedly used the agency’s Flock account to search tag information for two people she knew.

Cobb County Sheriff’s Office Assistant Chief Deputy Gina Hawkins said it’s not difficult for officials to follow the rules and resist temptation.

“I live in the community. I want to make sure there’s nobody out there running my stuff just randomly,” she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I want to feel safe where I live in Cobb County. We’re all citizens, and we want to make sure trust is established consistently.”

Why are license plate recognition databases misused?

LPRs are typically mounted on poles, streetlights and overpasses. The data collected is frequently used to track wanted suspects or stolen vehicles. State law restricts what can be done with information collected from the cameras and how long that data can be stored if it isn’t being used for “law enforcement purposes.”

Common and sometimes controversial LPR systems in use today include those made by Flock Safety, which is Atlanta-based, and Axon.

Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the pattern of LPR abuse he sees most often involves an officer tracking someone they have a personal relationship with, including someone they know and former, current and potential future romantic interests.

The Institute for Justice, a nonprofit civil rights law firm based in Virginia, said it has identified at least 20 such “ALPR romantic stalking cases” in recent years in the U.S.

Michael Soyfer, an attorney with the institute, said the cases are likely “the tip of the iceberg,” given that in most of them a victim informed the department about the stalking instead of the agency learning about it first through an audit or some other investigation.

“It was all officers who were using them to keep tabs on romantic partners or potential romantic partners, past romantic partners — essentially just stalking people,” Soyfer said.

When investigations and arrests do happen, agencies sometimes reveal information about the relationship between the officer and victim, and specifics about how the system was misused.

For example, last month a Gwinnett County police officer was charged with simple battery and stalking after fellow officers responded May 1 to a domestic dispute between the officer and a former romantic partner, the department said. They had recently separated and were still living together as the victim prepared to move out of their home, authorities said.

Gwinnett police Cpl. Angela Carter confirmed to the AJC that the officer who was arrested had used an LPR system to find the victim’s location and may face additional charges as a result.

Misuse of the technology by a few can cause distrust of LPR and law enforcement in general, though Butch Ayers, executive director of the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, said the technology is a useful tool that has resulted in the recovery of missing persons, stolen vehicles, wanted persons and trafficking victims.

“I am not sure why a law enforcement officer would endanger their career by unlawfully accessing LPR data without a legitimate law enforcement purpose,” Ayers said in an email to the AJC.

How metro Atlanta agencies and LPR companies are preventing misuse

Flock Safety recently introduced an “audit assistance tool,” which a spokesperson said identifies search patterns that fall outside an agency’s normal usage. Data is also typically deleted after 30 days. Georgia law requires that collected data shall be destroyed no later than 30 months after originally collected, unless part of an investigation.

Every search in the Flock system is recorded in a permanent audit log, company spokesperson Paris Lewbel told the AJC. This tracks which user performed the search, the reason they listed for it and the search parameters, she said.

“Accountability is built into the system by design, and when concerns arise, agencies have the tools to review activity and take appropriate action,” Lewbel said.

Axon says on its website that its evidence management platform automatically records in an audit trail every time data is viewed, edited or downloaded, though it’s unclear whether that standard applies to its LPR products. Axon has not responded to the AJC’s request for more information.

Cherokee sheriff’s office spokesperson Capt. Howard Baker confirmed the agency discovered the three recent cases of misuse after a self-audit through Flock’s LPR database. He added the agency will be conducting a minimum of two audits annually to ensure compliance.

Metro Atlanta departments — including in the city of Atlanta, Cobb County and DeKalb County — have similar policies when it comes to LPR usage. Not everyone within an agency has access. Those who do are provided their own credentials, and they must enter a reason for each query.

DeKalb Sheriff Melody Maddox considers the misuse of databases a serious breach of public trust, a violation of the oath of office and a sign that integrity is lacking, a spokesperson said.

“Any employee found to have improperly accessed, used, disclosed or otherwise violated established database policies and procedures will be subject to appropriate disciplinary action,” the spokesperson said.

Atlanta police supervisors are required by policy to initiate an investigation when an employee is suspected of misusing an LPR system. Gwinnett police have an LPR administrator who conducts training on Flock use and weekly audits to ensure compliance, according to the department’s website.

A Cobb police spokesperson said sample audits “will be conducted at least” annually, and DeKalb police said system activity is subject to “routine audits” by department personnel not tied to the original search activity.

Assistant Chief Deputy Hawkins said the most common uses of LPR systems within the Cobb sheriff’s office are investigative searches, such as a description of a wanted vehicle or when an officer runs a license plate after pulling someone over.

She said she welcomes complaints from the public when misuse does occur. A complaint could involve someone alleging a deputy used an LPR database to find their address or search their vehicle without an investigative reason, she explained.

“(If) they’re doing it for anything that’s personal use, that’s not only a policy violation, that is a state criminal violation as well,” she said.

Terry Norris, executive director of the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association, said he will bring up at next month’s meeting of the association’s board the idea of proposing state legislation that “really puts some teeth into how the data is used, and sanctions for those that don’t behave appropriately.”

“It’s only fair to these officers that are out there using it to give them more specific guidelines,” Norris said, calling LPRs enormously helpful in enforcing the law and saving lives. “We’re eager to do everything we can to use this data and protect the public from misuse.”

What experts say can reduce LPR misuse

Marlow, of the ACLU, said departments can’t be trusted to police their own officers’ use of LPRs. He argues agencies should have an independent auditor reviewing logs “on a fairly regular basis.” He said agencies should determine how often to audit LPR usage based on department size, how many people have access to LPR systems and how often the database is used.

If agencies insist on using LPRs, then Marlow said they can reduce data retention and sharing with other departments to decrease the amount of data available and the number of people with access to it. He said agencies should choose not to share data with other agencies unless absolutely necessary and that data, unless tied to an investigation, should be deleted after 48 hours.

“The major problem with ALPR systems is the amount of data being collected and retained against people who are not accused of doing anything wrong,” he said.

Soyfer, of the Institute for Justice, said abuse of the systems could be avoided in many cases if officers were required to get a search warrant to use an LPR to track someone’s movements over time.

The organization has filed two federal lawsuits challenging the use of LPRs to “surveil cities” and are asking the courts to require search warrants to retain data for more than a brief period, he said.

A judge ruled against the institute in one of those suits, filed against Norfolk, Virginia, finding that, while it’s possible that law enforcement agencies’ use of the cameras will someday amount to an unlawful search and seizure, they haven’t yet reached that level.

That case is on appeal at the Fourth Circuit, where it has attracted dozens of arguments filed by civil rights groups opposed to the cameras’ use and other groups that say the cameras are a necessary element of crime management.

Georgia signed on to one of the so-called amicus briefs in the case, arguing that the cameras are filming people who are out in public, and that the state’s law enforcement agencies therefore have a right to take images of them.

Another of the institute’s lawsuits is against San Jose, California, and is still in the early stages of litigation.

The Institute for Justice is also advocating for legislation at the federal, state and local levels that would require search warrants. Without a warrant, the use of LPRs to track people’s movements over time violates the Fourth Amendment protection of a reasonable expectation of privacy, Soyfer said.

“Police are just disregarding those constitutional limitations and protection,” he said. “In all the cases where you see police stalking their romantic interests using license plate readers, that wouldn’t happen if they had to go get a warrant, because they wouldn’t even apply for it in the first place, let alone get it.”