Madison County board members ask questions related to license plate readers
by Randy Pierce • Dalton Gray of Troy is one of two members of the Madison County Board who made an inquiry concerning the use of mobile license plate readers by the sheriff’s department while making it clear he fully supports the acquisition of a pair of them as approved earlier this month.
A resolution passed by the board at its regular monthly meeting on Wednesday, April 15, allows for the purchase of two such pieces of equipment at a cost of $71,984.60 from Utilitra in Edwardsville.
The trailers have been made available through the Illinois General Services Administration program where proposals from various suppliers are sought as part of a process where the vendors provide lower costs for various items based on the fact that there will be multiple quantity sales throughout the state, a means by which many local government units also purchase vehicles.
When this subject surfaced at this month’s county board meeting, Gray said he was curious to know if the data collected by the LPRs is stored locally or shared with other entities.
Sheriff Jeff Connor responded that the information collected by these devices, which use high-resolution cameras and pertinent software to capture, read and analyze, through checking with motor vehicle registration records, license plates on vehicles, either stationary or while moving, is stored on a server at the Alton Police Department.
The details are stored for 90 days and are accessible to anyone with the Alton PD who uses that server.
Gray thanked Connor for “using these tools to keep us safe and also protecting the data of our citizens.”
Another board member, Michael “Mick” Madison of Bethalto, asked Connor if there were any specific policies in place concerning what the LPRs and the information they collect will and won’t be used for.
Connor answered that there are indeed what he called “protocols” that have been implemented concerning the LPR data which is primarily used for post-incident criminal investigations like when someone would provide a description of a vehicle or it would be photographed by a stationary security camera.
The findings resulting from the LPRs are not released to “third party” interests, Connor said, and only maintained for use by law enforcement agencies like the Madison County Sheriff’s Department and possibly local municipal police.
In April 2023, both Gray and Madison voted no on the acquisition by the sheriff’s department of a mobile license plate reader to be used on a squad car.
At that time, Madison said he recognized the potential benefits of the device, which the county has installed at various stationery locations like on bridges over the Mississippi River, but he cited the Patriot Act, signed into law by former President George W. Bush with the intent of curtailing terrorism threats and commented that this legislation has been used “to spy on American citizens.”
Marcos Pulido, chief deputy for the Madison County Sheriff’s Department, said the mobile LPR would function in a way that it would alert the driver of the squad car to such information as the image of a stolen vehicle or one used in a robbery, for example.
He supplemented that by mentioning how some lawbreakers become familiar with where the non-mobile LPRs are located so they make sure they avoid them in order to keep the whereabouts of the vehicles they are using from being tracked.
Similar to the comment by Connor, the county law enforcement agency has policies in place, Pulido went on, that would prevent the use of the LPR in a way that would intrude upon anyone’s freedom or privacy including accountability processes that expressly prohibit such actions.
“This is for criminal behavior,” Pulido emphasized, with information gathered kept on file to be turned to for investigative purposes and research, something that could be “valuable” in any high crime situation or critically significant incidents involving breaking the law.
“Truth be told,” Pulido continued, “the people at the sheriff’s office are too busy to just sit and research for no reason. It would be used to catch bad guys, not monitor the innocent.”
