It was actually clear enough all along, but with a new ruling by California attorney General Rob Bonta, it’s now doubly clear: State law does not permit California law enforcement agencies to share automated license plate reader data with out-of-state or federal law enforcement agencies.
Various state laws, one of them passed fully eight years ago, had already made such sharing illegal in California — and yet various law-enforcement departments were doing it anyway.
So this week Bonta issued two rulings sent to all policing agencies in the state reminding them “of their obligation to ensure that the storage, collection, sharing, and use of this information is consistent with California law.”
This reminder likely never would have happened without the dedicated work of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which in May sent out a reminder of pervasive law-breaking by the supposed law-enforcers: “Seventy-one California police agencies in 22 counties must immediately stop sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with law enforcement agencies in other states because it violates California law and could enable prosecution of abortion seekers and providers elsewhere.”
The EFF was joined by state chapters of the ACLU in its effort.
The foundation, using hundreds of public records requests, found that police and sheriff’s departments in the state use ALPR camera systems to collect and store location information about drivers, “including dates, time, and locations. This sensitive information can reveal where individuals work, live, associate, worship — or seek reproductive health services and other medical care.”
That’s the abortion angle here. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade and sending abortion policies back to all 50 states, some states have made it illegal not only to have abortions in their jurisdictions — but even to do so in pro-choice states such as California.
Idaho legislators passed a law making helping a pregnant minor get an abortion in another state punishable by two to five years in prison, for example.
“Law enforcement officers in anti-abortion jurisdictions who receive the locations of drivers collected by California-based ALPRs may seek to use that information to monitor abortion clinics and the vehicles seen around them and closely track the movements of abortion seekers and providers,” the EFF wrote in May in its demand to see state law enforced. “This threatens even those obtaining or providing abortions in California, since several anti-abortion states plan to criminalize and prosecute those who seek or assist in out-of-state abortions.”
Even though it has been unlawful since 2016 to do so, some California police agencies have been sharing ALPR data with law enforcement agencies across the country, including in Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas — and Idaho.
EFF Director of Investigations Dave Maass said this week that the two new Bonta rulings have “confirmed what we’ve been saying for years: It is against the law for California law enforcement agencies to share data collected from automated license plate readers with out-of-state or federal agencies. This guidance will protect abortion seekers, immigrants and indeed anyone who drives a car in the Golden State from abusive surveillance.”
In our area, police agencies that have shared such data with out-of-state agencies and so received the letters insisting they stop doing so from the EFF include the departments in Alhambra, Burbank, Desert Hot Springs, Downey, Hermosa Beach, Laguna Beach, Orange and Pasadena — and the Riverside and San Bernardino sheriff’s departments.
Stop sending such surveillance data out of state — now.
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