The Overland Park Police Department has tightened guidelines around the use of the city’s 37 stationary automated license plate readers and 110 vehicle mounted cameras.
“While automated license plate reader technology has been a part of Overland Park’s public safety efforts since 2011, evolving technological capabilities require our policy to evolve alongside them,” police spokesperson Officer John Lacy said in a statement to KCUR.
The new regulations ban the use of automated license plate reader data to gather information on free speech or religious activity. Cameras are prohibited within “100 feet of any place of worship, polling place, or medical facility.”
The rules shorten the amount of time camera data can be stored from one year to 30 days.
The police department also now prohibits the “integration of artificial intelligence facial recognition technology” and using the data to enforce “tax law or immigration law.”
The department said it consulted with several organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union.
“The OPPD's willingness to meaningfully engage and take steps to address our concerns is commendable,” Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas, said in a statement.
Kubic said Overland Park police Chief Doreen Jokerst, who took over the department two years ago, sought his input. The civil rights nonprofit opposes widespread use of automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, and has launched a campaign against Flock Safety, one of the primary companies in the industry.
“The ACLU of Kansas will continue to advocate for ending the use of ALPRs entirely, but the updated OPPD policy is a significant step forward in limiting ALPR use,” Kubic said.
The new rules took effect late last week. The Overland Park City Council’s Public Safety Committee will hear a presentation Wednesday night.
Overland Park uses Genetec and Axon, two of the larger suppliers of automated license plate readers.
While that data is searchable, police can’t enter so-called freeform searches, which can be as vague as a blue Honda or a man with a black ski mask.
Overland Park does not use Flock, which has received the brunt of criticism because it ties together cameras across the county, allowing police to search data almost anywhere.
KCUR discovered that in a six-month period, Kansas City, Kansas, Flock data was searched 1.1 million times.
The most frequent searches were by officers from police departments in Houston and Dallas and the California Highway Patrol.
In all, those three out-of-state departments searched Flock data in Kansas City, Kansas, 198,000 times.
Overland Park’s updated regulations require police to have an agreement with another department before sharing any data.
If no agreement exists, a written request for the data must be submitted that includes the agency case number and the “intended purpose of obtaining the information,” the regulation said.
Lee’s Summit, Missouri, police now require a memorandum of understanding before sharing license plate reader data.
Although Overland Park doesn’t own Flock cameras, it has access to privately owned Flock camera data in the city.
Cases of misuse across the country
Overland Park will now require monthly audits of automated license plate reader data searches. If misuse is detected, the case would be sent to the district attorney for review.
The Institute for Justice has a map that shows 275 incidents of data abuse in the U.S. since 2018.
That includes five cases in Kansas and three in Missouri.
The Kansas incidents include the case of Canyen Ashworth.
A KCUR investigation discovered that Lenexa police tracked Ashworth’s movements with automated license plate readers after he wrote a critical newspaper column about the department.
Stories of Flock data abuse are frequent.
On Monday, a sheriff’s deputy and training officer were arrested in Baldwin County, Georgia, for misusing Flock data.
A month ago, a Shively, Kentucky, police officer was arrested for tracking his ex-girlfriend with Flock information.
