Bill would impose guardrails on S.C.’s license plate-reading cameras
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - If you drive in South Carolina, law enforcement likely knows where you’ve been and when.
They have access to records with this data from license plates, which they say is an important tool to stop and prevent crime.
But some believe that an unregulated tool needs guardrails around it.
A bill advancing in the state Senate would impose regulations on the cameras located across South Carolina known as automatic license plate readers, or ALPRs.
In the middle of this discussion is the question of how to strike a balance between public safety and the rights of citizens.
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Every time a car drives by, these cameras automatically take a photo of the vehicle and its license plate and record data, capturing when and where the plate was read.
Law enforcement leaders told senators this week that the cameras have been used in South Carolina to track down suspects, locate abducted children, and even solve murders.
“Lives have been saved,” Oconee County Sheriff Mike Crenshaw said.
Some described the tool as a “force multiplier” for smaller departments, cheaper to purchase and maintain than the cost of hiring and training a new officer.
“There are great demands on law enforcement, probably now more than ever, and we’ve got to capitalize on the technology that’s out there,” Chester County Sheriff Max Dorsey added.
But others worry about how this information could be used, with little mandated regulation in place.
“This technology has proven prone to abuse,” Josh Malkin with the ACLU of South Carolina said.
This bill would impose restrictions on who could use these readers and for what purpose, limiting it to law enforcement, the state Department of Transportation, and the Department of Public Safety, and for third parties to regulate parking and control access to secure areas.
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“There is no right to privacy for someone who is traveling along those highways while we take a picture of a government-owned and -issued license tag,” Dorsey said.
It would also allow these readers “to promote public safety” and “deter crime” in coordination with law enforcement — language which groups including the ACLU believe is too vague and needs to be tailored down.
“I think this bill could be amended in accordance with Fourth Amendment principles to balance the needs of our law enforcement with South Carolinians’ constitutional protections from unreasonable searches and seizures,” Malkin said.
Meanwhile, the South Carolina Department of Transportation has stopped installing these cameras in state-owned rights-of-way for more than a year now, until it gets more guidance from the legislature on whether they are allowed.
An ongoing lawsuit in state court also challenges the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division’s use of this technology.
It was initially filed more than two years ago and is still pending.
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