State representatives for Bridgeport, Fairfield and Trumbull recently held a virtual talk with experts on automated license plate reader cameras (ALPRs). The meeting focused on the cameras, and broader policy debates over privacy and safety.
That’s what has many Fairfield residents concerned.
Dan Rubenstein, who resides in Fairfield, said he has called for a public meeting on the cameras in town. Rubenstein said discussions will only work if officials can talk to people, face to face.
“The town has an opportunity here to treat us like adults and hopefully find a way to engage the town publicly, where there can be some structure around it, so that we can have a much better chance at actually having that dialogue,” Rubenstein said.
Ken Barone, the Project Manager with the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy (IMRP) at UConn, said the technology behind the cameras is progressing so rapidly, policy debates over the cameras could be irrelevant over the next few years as surveillance companies gain the capacity to add on features to already existing surveillance networks.
Barone said having those discussions and holding specific companies accountable will be crucial.
Police Officer Standards and Training Council Chairman, Keith Mello, who is also the police chief for the Milford Police Department, said during the meeting there are protections in place, including requiring specific reasons to look up data collected from the cameras.
“An officer has to have reasonable and articulable suspicion,” Mello said.” It's not just a hunch, it's not that somebody can just use that and search for whatever they want.”
But Fairfield resident, Leslie Jezior, says having an in-person meeting led by town officials would be more impactful, even if those discussions in other municipalities across the state, have often gotten tense
“Just recognizing people's frustration will actually lower the temperature as well,” Jezior said.
Jezior said the virtual meeting on ALPRS had less to do with Fairfield and more to do with broader policy questions.
Jezior said that just leads to more uncertainty about what the town is attempting to accomplish with the cameras.
“Given the number of cameras Fairfield has, I keep coming back to this question; is Fairfield not as safe as it’s reported to be,” Jezior said. “And if it is indeed safe, what is it we are trying to achieve with the extent of this technology?”
Fairfield’s crime rates have decreased according to annual Department of Emergency Services & Public Protection crime reports over the last three years.
But while Jezior said the forum was less clear for Fairfield residents, the town’s police department has launched an ALPR transparency page listing the locations of the cameras, the vendor (Axon) and the state law governing the cameras. The transparency page also lists a variety of crimes the cameras have helped to solve.
Jezior said the portal could be difficult for less than tech-savvy residents to navigate, so an in-person meeting would be the most accessible way for officials to inform the public.
Fairfield First Selectperson Christine Vitale did not respond to Connecticut Public’s request for comment.
Connecticut’s ALPR law was updated this year. Police departments can only retain data from those cameras for 21 days, unless it is part of an active criminal investigation, starting in October.
Governor Ned Lamont previously requested that The Police Officer Standards and Training Council (POSTC) review the use of the cameras in August.
Lamont’s request came amid public anger over the cameras and privacy concerns swelled into, at times, tense confrontations between residents, police and elected officials.
Privacy advocates like Gus Marks-Hamilton, an Advocacy & Organizing Manager at the ACLU of Connecticut, say he wants to see further restrictions on how long police can keep ALPR data once the legislative session begins.
“I think there's a ripe opportunity now to revisit that retention period, and maybe something that's even less than that, less than seven days, because every day that people's data is being held, if it's not being used, it becomes more and more riskier for it to be misused.” Marks-Hamilton said.
Despite those concerns, many towns across Connecticut have an ALPR program.
Mello said around 70% of Connecticut’s municipalities have adopted the devices. But Barone says there’s still no independent analysis that proves the cameras have actually helped solve more crimes compared to other methods.
“The reality is that there has really been, at least not that I have seen in any substantive way, a real independent statistical evaluation of the clearance rates,” Barone said. “The rate at which crimes are being solved, and has it changed in any substantive way pre and post the introduction of the technology.”
