To equip Lakewood police officers with additional tools to assist in the recovery of stolen vehicles, the Lakewood Police Department uses license plate reading technology around the city.
This summer the City of Lakewood contracted with Flock Safety to purchase and deploy the technology, including license plate readers at key locations across the city. The technology system runs the information to identify stolen vehicles, or to assist with trying to solve a crime after it is committed.
Information collected does not compromise individual privacy. Part of the software includes a “transparency portal” which shows how the city uses the information, how long it is kept, what information is reviewed and how many “hotlist” (or stolen) vehicles are identified through the system.
The City of Lakewood transparency portal is now live and can be viewed here.
Lakewood PD: I applaud use of this technology for the purpose of identifying the movement of stolen vehicles, but then have to wonder why the Transparency Portal shows “Hotlist hits in the last 30 days Data Unavailable” as its benefit. In a future post, please fill in this most useful blank.
How about enforcing annual auto license renewals too? I’d guess that 10% of the cars I see on the road have expired tags, often expired over a year old. If people don’t bother to renew their tags you can bet they don’t bother to renew their insurance. That puts everyone at risk for a financial catastrophe should their be a collision.