Los Angeles Cops Argue All Cars in LA Are Under InvestigationJennifer Lynch Do you drive a car in the greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area? According to the L.A. Police Department and L.A. Sheriffs Department, your car is part of a vast criminal investigation. The agencies took a novel approach in the briefs they filed in EFF and the ACLU of Southern Californias California Public Records Act lawsuitseeking a weeks worth of Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) data. They have argued that All [license plate] data is investigatory. The fact that it may never be associated with a specific crime doesnt matter. This argument is completely counter to our criminal justice system, in which we assume law enforcement will not conduct an investigation unless there are some indicia of criminal activity. In fact, the Fourth Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution exactly to prevent law enforcement from conducting mass, suspicionless investigations under general warrants that targeted no specific person or place and never expired. Taken to an extreme, the agencies arguments would allow law enforcement to conduct around-the-clock surveillance on every aspect of our lives and store those records indefinitely on the off-chance they may aid in solving a crime at some previously undetermined date in the future. If the court accepts their arguments, the agencies would then be able to hide all this data from the public. However, as we argued in the Reply brief we filed in the case last Friday, the accumulation of information merely because it might be useful in some unspecified case in the future certainly is not an investigation within any reasonable meaning of the word. LAPD and LASD Recognize Privacy Interest in License Plate Data In another interesting turn in the case, both agencies fully acknowledged the privacy issues implicated by the collection of license plate data. LAPD stated in its brief: The sheriffs department recognized that ALPR data tracked individuals movement over time and that, with only a license plate number, someone could learn personal identifying information about the vehicle owner (such as the owners home address) by looking up the license plate number in a database with reverse lookup capabilities such as LexisNexis and Westlaw. The agencies use the fact that ALPR data collection impacts privacy to argue thatalthough they should still be allowed to collect this information and store it for yearsthey should not have to disclose any of it to the public. However, the fact that the technology can be so privacy invasive suggests that we need more information on where and how it is being collected, not less. This sales video from Vigilant Solutions shows just how much the government can learn about where youve been and how many times youve been there when Vigilant runs their analytics tools on historical ALPR data. We can only understand how LA police are really using their ALPR systems through access to the narrow slice of the data weve requested in this case. We will be arguing these points and others at the hearing on our petition for writ of mandate in Los Angeles Superior Court, Stanley Mosk Courthouse, this coming Friday at 9:30 AM. You can find all of EFFs Sunshine Week posts linked here. 