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The North Branch Chief of Police was asking for the city council to approve a policy for utilizing license plate readers, and for the authorization to contract for the $21,000 service and council just wasn’t ready to act last week.  With member Patrick Meacham absent, the vote was unanimous to table the reader policy and contract for more information.

Four residents spoke during the public hearing reviewing the policy.  One person who gave his address as Blaine, basically was doubting the security of the license plate data and what they view as an invasion of privacy.  

The seven license plate readers are proposed to be acquired through Flock technology company, and positioned on main routes into the city.  (Story Press March 19)

The devices record license plate data from the rear of a passing vehicle.  The readers are communicating wirelessly with a central database.  

A company representative told the council the system also can interface with “vehicle fingerprint” information if it’s available. Often a crime is committed with a specific vehicle and authorities will be provided a color and other descriptive elements.  

No driver images are captured and unless the license plate number is fed into the device database, the image recorded by the reader has no reason to trigger an alert.

The system North Branch wants does NOT enforce speed or red light violations or any traffic code.

Flock spokesperson Kristen Macleod said the plate reader company maintains no personal information such as addresses or ages, etc. in its database.  Should authorities follow-up on a Flock plate “hit” they must use law enforcement systems to get specific information, but can not be accessed through the roadside reader system.

Chief Dan Meyer also explained that a log is kept of any agency that enters the system to access the license plate and there is a permanent record of case numbers attached to the times information is sought, held for future reference.

During the public hearing, council heard concerns expressed about “bad actors” using the plate data for harassing or stalking and worried the data can be used for “tracking”

North Branch is not the first in this area to want to activate these readers.  The cities of Rush City, Wyoming, St Croix Falls and numerous sites in Chisago County township rural areas have been using automated license plate readers and report they are very useful.  Lakes Area Police are in the process of  installing the Flock system in Lindstrom-Chisago City and their service territory.

The database that the readers interface with is built by law enforcement participating agencies who enter stolen vehicles, active warrants, suspended and revoked licensees, and vehicles associated with Amber Alert incidents, among other eligible criteria.  State law puts a cap on length of retention for the plate information but North Branch council asked staff to look into possible local policy options.

Council members Goulet and Ibinger stated if they were called upon to vote at that moment, based on the policy vagueness, they would oppose the readers.  Mayor Schieber said he is still weighing the perceived loss of privacy with the benefits of public safety using another tool to do their job.  Schieber added that  a mobile criminal might choose to travel into North Branch knowing the city has no license plate readers, to better avoid detection.  

He noted, “For the vast majority of us” if not suspected of being tied to a criminal act— the readers are just another surveillance reality in the modern day world— like cell phones and GPS on new vehicles that track our every move.

Council will have the actions on a future agenda when no council absences are anticipated.

There were references to “10 or 11” emails that council received and considered— but the correspondence was not read out loud to be entered into the record.

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