ACLU sues city, SDPD over license plate reader technology

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Welcome in San Diego, it's Jade Hindman. On this episode of KPBS Midday Edition, what's in a new lawsuit against San Diego and its police department over automated license plate readers? This is KPBS Midday Edition, connecting our communities through conversation. So this morning, two civil rights organizations announced the filing of a lawsuit against the city of San Diego and its police department over the use of ALPR, or automated license plate reader technology. The lawsuit is filed by the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, along with the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, or PANA. The suit argues ALPR surveillance technology violates the California Constitution. So joining me to talk about it is Frederick Carroll, legal director with the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, along with Humaira Yousafi, a senior policy strategist with PANA, the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans. Frederick, Humaira, welcome to Midday Edition. Thank you.

Thank you so much. It's our pleasure.

Glad to have you both here. So before we get into the details, Frederick, remind us what we're referring to when we say ALPR technology. What does that term encompass?

ALPR refers to automated license plate readers. It's a little bit misleading, honestly, because these automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, are cameras. And like any other camera, they capture anything in the view of the lens. And so they capture, among other things, license plates. But like any other camera, they capture and store and make searchable all of the data that that lens captures.

And this morning, the ACLU and PANA filed a lawsuit against the city and STPD over their use of this technology. Can you walk us through the central argument of the lawsuit?

Absolutely. The California Constitution provides for us an affirmative guarantee to privacy. What I mean by that is that in its very onset, Article 1, Section 1 of the California Constitution guarantees privacy to Californians, and of course, that includes San Diegans. However, that fundamental guarantee of what our rights are supposed to protect and the ideals that we find as Californians and San Diegos to be fundamental means nothing if we are constantly under mass surveillance as we go about our day to day lives. And so we are challenging the mass surveillance through the Flock contract and the use of ALPR cameras as violating the law, violating the California Constitution that guarantees our right to privacy.

And I do want to note KPBS reached out to both the city of San Diego and SDPD for a statement on the lawsuit on behalf of our listeners and taxpayers. SDPD said it can't comment on pending litigation and the city has not yet responded. Humira, how or why did Pena get involved in this lawsuit?

Well, PANA got involved because we've actually been fighting against these ALPRs for quite a while. We do believe that the