At Tuesday night’s Morro Bay City Council meeting, there was a lot of discussion about automated license plate readers (ALPRs).
“Council wanted to talk about it," said John Craig, Morro Bay City Manager. "Hear from the staff what exactly we have and how we go about monitoring the system and what does.”
Lots of people chimed in and gave their perspectives on the technology.
KSBY News spoke with Clara Fulks, a local digital literacy consultant who shared multiple concerns, such as community members not being asked prior to installation in 2023.
“This data doesn’t just stay local, and it doesn’t just stay in those municipalities; it also goes to what is called fusion centers, which are basically intelligence hubs in California. We have quite a few," Fulks said.
Back in August, Morro Bay Police Chief Amy Watkins shared that the use of these cameras initially started as a way to crack down on catalytic converter thefts, and that the 80 agencies they share information with are California law enforcement agencies only.
“I would love for the city council of Morro Bay to have broken their contract with Motorola; they did not do that,” Fulks said.
In a 3-2 vote, the council decided to continue its contract with Motorola through 2028, but there are some updates in policy the city is looking to make.
Which are shortening the amount of time allowed to store data, which is currently five years, looking into limiting the number of agencies they sign MOUs with to access the data, and conducting audits.
“Simply looking at the data to see who is accessing it and why, and so that may be something that we do and hire an external auditor to look at it and make sure the data is not only looked at by our police officers but also a third party that can review that and make sure that we’re following our own policies,” Craig said.
