Police cameras to ID license plates, but not faces yet

Columbus police will begin recording license plates in areasofLindenandtheHilltop with high numbers of shootings using new fixed camera readers that will activate when gunshots are detected byShotSpottertechnologythe city already leases.

City Council on Monday approved a three-year contract atnearly $105,000annually for the license plate readers by a 5-2 vote.

The council also allocated $335,000in city general fund money to help the Franklin County Municipal Court continue operating temporarily at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, giving it more room to socially distance during the COVID19 pandemic.

The city has allocated $821,000 next year for the ShotSpotter system, which detects gunshots and immediately notifies officers. Linking license plate readers to the system will make itmore powerful, policeCommander Smith Weir told the council. SpotShotterhasdetectedmore than 17,000 gunshots fired in three cityneighborhoodscovering nine square miles so far this year, Weir said.

The license plate readers will give police a list of vehicles that are in the areawhen shots are fired, butWeir said that won’t lead to random traffic stops.

“The Division doesn’t conduct random traffic stops,” Weir said.

Instead, officers and detectives will combine the license numbers with other crimescene information to zero in on suspect vehicles, he said.

More likely, police Chief ThomasQuinlanadded,would bethatavehiclewouldbecome the focus of an investigation becauseitshowsupatmultiple shooting locations over time.

ButPresident ProTemElizabeth Brown noted that the product detail in the license plate reader legislation also highlighted the technology’s facial recognition capabilities eventhough“we’vebeentold the (police) division does not use this technology.”

Quinlan said the division doesn’t use facial recognition technology “in house,” but canuse it to search state databases andmugshots.

“Those are the areas that we’re using that technology,” Quinlan said. Thevendor, VigilantSolutions,“hastheability to offer that service at some point in the future,” but that’s not why the division is purchasing the system, he said.

Later, however, he said he wanted to double-check that and get back with the council, vowing to be transparent.

The city should be careful about “gradual investment” in technology thatoffersmass surveillance and data collection on citizens, said Brown, whoalongwithCouncilwoman ShaylaFavor votedagainst the license plate reader contract.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California announced last year thatU.S. ImmigrationandCustoms Enforcement, or ICE, had purchased data fromVigilant license plate readers to help locate and arrest undocumented immigrants. The ACLU said more than 9,000 ICE agents had access to the firm’s “vast automatedlicense plate reader database” under a $6.1 million contract.