Transparency: Rare victory in obtaining license plate scans from Oakland police

Ars Technica used a public record request to obtain the entire data base of 4.6 million reads of license plates between 2010 and 2014 made by the Oakland Police Department. An Ars Technica analysis showed that the police could use the data to make a number of valid conclusions about the private lives of the license plate owners. Last August the ACLU and EFF failed in a quest to obtain a single week’s of license plate data from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Some law enforcement agencies keep the license plate data for only a number of days while the Los Angeles Police Department keeps data for two years. Many law-abiding citizens are concerned that their private affairs are be extrapolated by government agencies in a move toward a Big Brother type of society. (Ars Technica, March 24, 2015, by Cyrus Farivar)

Requests for the license plate data are usually rejected on the grounds that the data is part of an ongoing investigation with the courts backing law enforcement agencies. But in this case, Oakland policeman Anthony Toribio said, “…we have nothing to hide. I think it’s important for a law enforcement organization to be transparent, and it goes to being credible and establishing legitimacy in the community.” (autoblog, March 26, 2015, by Pete Bigelow)

The Los Angeles request by the ACLU and EFF also asked for information about the operation of the systems collecting license plate numbers including policies and details about training. (Electronic Frontier Foundation)