One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
LA City Council allows LAPD Axon automated license plate reader pilot program to move ahead
The Los Angeles Police Department let its previous agreement with Flock, a company that operates automated license plate readers, to lapse due to questions over security and privacy concerns.
(
Justin Sullivan
/
Getty Images
)
The Los Angeles City Council gave the L.A. Police Department the green light Tuesday to move forward with a pilot program to install new automated license plate recognition cameras in the city, despite concerns from council members and the public about privacy and surveillance.
The council voted 9-6 to veto the program, but fell short of the 10 votes required to nix the agreement and send it back to the Board of Police Commissioners.
Under the pilot program, security company Axon Enterprise will install cameras on some city streetlights for a three-month trial period, at no cost to the city.
The narrow vote divided the council, which debated at length whether L.A. should move forward with introducing more license plate readers on its streets without additional requirements on how the police use the data.
This summer, LAPD declined to renew its contract with Flock Safety for license plate readers after reports that law enforcement agencies including LAPD had shared Flock data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Across California, the use of AI license plate readers has faced pushback from community members concerned about how the information is used.
The L.A. City Council voted 9 - 6 to veto the program and fell short of the ten votes required to nix the agreement.
(
Courtesy of the L.A. City Clerk's office
/
YouTube
)
“I certainly understand the department's desire to bring on a new company to replace Flock, but in the neighborhoods that I represent, there still seems to be a lot of uncertainty about how this new technology will work,” said Councilmember Curren Price, who voted to veto the pilot program.
Sponsored message
Council members who blocked the veto cited public safety concerns, saying there were other ways to require the police to increase transparency. Councilmember Traci Park said that outrage over the technology stemmed from misinformation.
Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who also voted against rejecting the pilot program, said the council’s power to negotiate tighter regulations on how LAPD uses license plate reader data could come later on, after the three-month testing period.
“The point of leverage is going to come after the three months, he said. “That's when we're going to be faced with this question about ‘Do we expand this?’”
How we got here
The City Council weighing in on an LAPD pilot program is not the norm, and comes after months of heightened scrutiny over how the department utilizes automatic license plate reader data. The department primarily uses the technology in its vehicles rather than on city streets.
In July, the Office of the Inspector General for the L.A. Board of Police Commissioners issued a lengthy report on the status of the technology within LAPD, and recommended the department get approval for new contracts from the Board of Police Commissioners, a civilian body appointed by the mayor that determines policy for the department.
That’s what led the board to consider and approve the Axon pilot program in September. That opened up an opportunity for the L.A. City Council to intervene in the decision. Under the city charter, the council can veto actions by boards of commissioners with a two-thirds vote.
Sponsored message
That’s what Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez was pushing for when he initiated the council vote. He said Tuesday that the vote was an opportunity to push the police department to commit to independent auditing of how it uses automated license plate reader data, establish board oversight of sharing data with external agencies and limit who in the department can access the data.
“We should take time to make sure that we have thorough, thoughtful protections laid out before we install more cameras,” Soto-Martinez said Tuesday.
The pilot program is just a small slice of LAPD’s business with Axon. The Board of Police Commissioners also recently approved a 10-year, $235 million contract with the company for body cameras, tasers and automated license plate recognition cameras for around 1,600 police vehicles.
That contract will require council approval and is currently being reviewed by the city administrative officer, according to the mayor’s office.
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
