A solar-powered license plate reader is mounted on a pole. (Photo courtesy Flock Safety)

MARQUETTE — As license plate-reading cameras to fight crime become more common on Michigan roads, their use is raising concerns about personal privacy.

These devices record plate numbers of passing vehicles and are different from cameras used to track traffic conditions.

Typically positioned on a pole or police cruiser, plate readers are more complex and gather more data than traffic cameras, experts say.

In a 2021 incident in River Rouge, five people from a neighboring city stole a car. Officers with the River Rouge Police Department received a Flock alert, located the vehicle and recovered two AR-15 assault rifles, according to the department.

The department said it believes its officers interrupted a drive-by shooting planned by gang members.

A recent study by Lauren Fash at the University of Maryland Law School found that automated license plate readers are useful tools because they automate scanning plates and comparing them to law enforcement databases.

But they also have the potential for abuse, the study said.

The primary manufacturer of plate readers used in Michigan is Flock Safety of Atlanta.

According to a WXYZ-TV report, a Michigan State Police official said last year that his department had used plate readers in investigating 90% of freeway shootings and making arrests in all of them.

Flock Safety also offers law enforcement agencies and private organizations cloud services, including data storage.

Daniel Pfannes, the deputy director of the Michigan Sheriffs’ Association, said “Plate readers assist law enforcement as an investigative tool that could uncover information that it would otherwise not have access to, and they are becoming more common.”

According to Pfannes, the devices capture the alphanumeric data from the license plate.

“The camera doesn’t know anything more than that,” he said. “It will query that plate number against the Michigan Law Enforcement Information Network to see if that is a wanted vehicle.

“If it is a wanted vehicle, then word will be sent to law enforcement that there has been a hit off of that plate, and it will capture the time and location of that car.”

In the typical process, readers are networked to the database maintained by Flock Safety and continually upload their images. The company then compares the new information to reports in the law enforcement network to see if there is a match.

If so, it updates the network, which will inform the nearest law enforcement agency.

Plate readers capture data from every car that passes across its field of view.

Pfannes said there is no connection between the plate reader and the Michigan Secretary of State’s database, so the reader cannot know whom the car is registered to, and it doesn’t capture the image of drivers or occupants.

“It has no way of knowing where you are going to or coming from,” he said.

If a plate is on the wanted list and passed a series of plate-reading cameras, the database could record when that car passed each of those readers, he said.

Police also can retroactively query the database to see if the number had previously been captured, he said. For example, if a child had been abducted and witnesses reported seeing a car in the area with a certain plate number, police can find out if that plate had been seen anywhere else.

The state has a data retention policy that limits storage of plate information to one year, Pfannes said.

Other experts express concern about the potential for abuse and invasion of privacy, including Gabrielle Dresner, a policy strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.

“It’s impossible to quantify how many plate readers there are in Michigan because each law enforcement department has their own contracts and their own rules and regulations,” she said.

“Probably over 50 local departments in Michigan use them, based on my own research, but no one collects official statistics. Their use is spreading rapidly.

“Our major concern is the expected right to privacy that is being violated when license plate readers are used. Even though the streets we use are public, you still have some right to privacy.

“Using the information that is retained, it is not so hard to infer where someone is coming from or going to.”

She said she worries about how the collected information can be tied to individuals, particularly in regard to reproductive health rights.

“While Michigan has protected those rights, other states have not, and there is the potential for that data to be shared between law enforcement agencies across state lines, especially for people who come here to receive reproductive health care. That could result in legal ramifications for them,” she said.

According to Dresner, there is currently no state law guiding how plate readers or their data can be used.

“What each department chooses to do with it is simply up to their own policies,” she said. “We are hoping to introduce new legislation this year that would govern how this information is used, who can access it and how long it can be stored.”