Urbana’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) proposal, initially presented to the City Council on September 20th, has been tabled by the Committee of the Whole (COW) for the time being. At the October 4th COW meeting, some members expressed concerns about the potential for abuse, and expressed irritation that the proposal failed to include statistical efficacy data.
The ALPR proposal, structured as a budget amendment to provide $50k per year for the first 20 cameras, was pressed onto the Council with no written or proposed policies on the usage of the system by police. Council member Christopher Evans issued his concerns:
Evans: “I think before we can approve anything, the public needs to see what is our policy…I will also go to the incredible meeting that we had September 20th where a digital surveillance company provides zero statistics for the effectiveness of this tool.”
Evans went on to argue that decisions on deploying ALPRs throughout the City of Urbana should not be made based on a handful of anecdotes about their efficacy, listing a few anecdotes of his own about instances where ALPRs failed.
Council member Grace Wilken focused on the complete absence of any type of ALPR usage policy:
“I think that we need to know the policy, all the research, and the safeguards that are going to be in place to prevent abuse or misuse of the system. The way I see it, if we approve this now, there will be no more input from the Council and the public.”
The Committee of the Whole voted to keep the ALPR proposal in Committee, which means it will be discussed and voted upon again by the COW before possibly going to City Council for final approval. The vote was unanimous with the exception of Shirese Hursey, who wanted to fund the ALPR system without any usages policies or efficacy data.
The full October 4th, 2021 Urbana City Council Committee of the Whole automatic license plate reader discussion can be viewed here:
The ALPR budget amendment discussed and tabled at the October 4th, 2021 Urbana City Council Committee meeting can be viewed here (click image for full 5-page PDF):
