Committee approves continued use of surveillance tech in San Diego

The San Diego Public Safety Committee approved the continued use of dozens of surveillance technologies on Thursday — 54 in all.

The approval includes Automatic License Plate Readers, a controversial technology that the city’s law enforcement strongly recommended.

ALPR technology is used as part of a strategy that involves the identification of vehicles associated with suspects, witnesses or victims.

“ALPR systems have proven to be very effective tools in combating crime. The operation and access to ALPR data shall be for official law enforcement purposes only,” the San Diego Police Department said in a statement.

“The legitimate law enforcement purposes of ALPR systems include locating stolen vehicles, wanted vehicles or vehicles subject to investigation and locating vehicles belonging to suspects, witnesses and victims of a violent crime.”

However, there has already been at least one data breach of data collected by the license plate during an almost three-week period that was initially omitted from the San Diego Police Department’s 2024 annual surveillance report.

Department officials said at the time that the omission was “an oversight.”

The following are listed by privacy advocacy groups as ALPR’s areas of concern:

• invasion of privacy of individuals or areas where a reasonable expectation of privacy exists;
• discrimination against or targeting of protected individuals, including by ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, disability or gender;
• harassment, intimidation, or discrimination against any individual or group;
• violation of Constitutional rights, federal, state or local laws;
• utilization of the technology for any personal purpose;
• investigations around parking violations and traffic enforcement; and
• indiscriminate viewing of videos without investigative or administrative need.

“The legitimate law enforcement purposes of ALPR systems include locating stolen vehicles, wanted vehicles or vehicles subject to investigation and locating vehicles belonging to suspects, witnesses and victims of a violent crime.”

The department claims that since automated license-plate reader technology was launched in 2024, it has assisted the SDPD in 600 investigations, including the recovery of at least 20 firearms, $5.8 million in stolen property involving 440 stolen vehicles and resulted in more than 420 arrests.

The Smart Streetlights System, which includes the situational cameras and the ALPR cameras, have been attached to streetlight poles throughout the city of San Diego since last year. Total Installation, activation and relocation costs for the Smart Streetlight Program was $3,519,300, according to the SDPD.

More information on smart streetlights and ALPR can be found here,

The safety committee will readdress ALPR use next month.