ACTION ALERT! Protect Privacy And Good Law Enforcement Practices - Support S.B. 196 - Email committee members now

The ACLU of Utah supports SB 196, “License Plate Reader Amendments” because it will protect the privacy rights of Utahns whose movements should not be tracked by law enforcement without cause.

• SB 196 would limit the use of Automatic License Plate Reader (“ALPR”) technology to law enforcement and would require that data collected be kept for no more than 6 months. Access to collected data would require a court-issued warrant.
• Currently, ALPRs are used to collect and store information, not just on people suspected of crimes, but on every single motorist, and are increasingly becoming a tool for mass routine location tracking and surveillance.
• ALPR is a legitimate tool when used for narrowly tailored law enforcement purposes, such as identifying vehicles that are stolen, involved in a crime, or associated with fugitives. These are reasonable uses of technology because they are focused on people suspected of wrongdoing. But law enforcement agencies are routinely collecting and storing license plate reader-harvested location information on all of us, sometimes indefinitely.
• The tracking of people’s movements is a significant invasion of privacy that can reveal many things about our lives, such as what friends, doctors, protests, political events, or churches we visit.
• A core principle in our society is that the government does not invade people’s privacy and collect information about citizens’ innocent activities just in case they do something wrong; we are innocent until proven guilty in the United States, not the other way around.

SB 196 is being heard in the Senate Transportation and Public Utilities and Technology Committee today; contact your Senator to encourage him or her to support this needed legislation!
Senator Kevin Van Tassell kvantassell@le.utah.gov
Senator Margaret Dayton mdayton@le.utah.gov
Senator Wayne Harper wharper@le.utah.gov
Senator Karen Mayne kmayne@le.utah.gov
Senator J. Stuart Adams jsadams@le.utah.gov