Salinas city council approves license plate reader cameras

SALINAS, Calif. (KION) New cameras in Salinas designed to help fight crime in the city will soon be up and running. Salinas City Council has approved the use of Automated License Plate Recognition cameras.

Much like the shot spotter technology, the automated license plate reader cameras gives Salinas police an additional way to track and capture criminals.

Automated License Plate Recognition cameras, ALPR cameras for short, are considered helpful when a crime takes place. Police say cameras only act as recording devices.

“I’m a huge believer in technology so I am going to use technology to augment the safety of the city and these camera’s allow me to do just that," said Salians Police Chief, Roberto Filice.

The cameras only focus on the license plate and vehicle a witness or victim may have been able to describe during a crime.

“These are not live cameras, they do not have any facial recognition software or anything like that. The only thing I am able to see is vehicle,” continued Chief Filice.

While the approval of these ALPR cameras was passed, it was not a unanimous vote. One “no” vote came from Councilmember Anthony Rocha out of concerns over privacy protocols.

"I wasn’t necessarily against the technology, I just wish we would have taken more time to clarify the privacy policy and make it council adopted policy, and then also focus on establishing a routine scheduling for auditing to insure that privacy is not just being given out,” said Salinas Councilmember Anthony Rocha, district 6.

Roche continued to mention, the state auditor did a report on ALPRs, which found that often times local police departments don’t do frequent and scheduled audits to check only plates are being captured.

"The intent is good. I wanted to take a little bit of a pause and see what the state ends up doing and beef up our internal privacy policy before moving in that direction.”

While the current privacy policy does mention information will not be given out, Roche wasn’t able to get a firm commitment that there would be an established routine auditing system.

"It doesn’t effect people’s civil liberties because we’re not interring in people’s private lives. These are public places,"Chief Filice.

The camera approval is a 24-month Services Agreement for the lease from Flock Group Inc., at an estimated 60-thousand dollars.
With a Year 1 cost of $57,500 and a Year 2 cost of $52,500