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South Carolina Using Mobile Cameras to Find Stolen Cars, Criminals
By Robert Kittle
Published: June 15, 2009
The Richland County Sheriff’s Department is the first in the state to begin using a new technology to find stolen cars and stolen license tags. It’s a camera and computer system called the Mobile Plate Hunter 900, which uses two cameras mounted on the patrol car and a laptop computer inside.
The system automatically takes pictures of the license tags of cars that are either passing, or are being passed by, the patrol car. It then runs the plates against databases to look for stolen vehicles, stolen tags and unpaid vehicle property taxes.
Richland County Sgt. Flynn Tanner says the system does a lot more than he could, especially since one of the cameras takes pictures of cars going the other direction, which he would be able to see only in his mirror. “My eyes are free to watch the road, scan from side to side and continue to look for any type of crime that I may be looking for at that time, while at the same time this system is reading tags.“
The system sounds an alarm when it registers a stolen car, stolen plate or anything else that’s in a criminal database.
“We happened to pass by and alerted on a vehicle license of a sex offender that was in our state that wasn’t registered,“ Sgt. Tanner says. “So that’s another thing that the system affords you, and, you know, what is that worth when you’re talking about peace of mind?“
As he was saying that while cruising through a Columbia parking lot, the system sounded the alarm for stolen vehicle. He backed up and looked at the plate. “Now see, that’s the human factor that I’m talking about it. It read that tag, but that’s a South Carolina tag, but those numbers actually come back a stolen vehicle from Mississippi. So it’s not a stolen vehicle. But obviously if it were, then we would recover it and that would be well worth it,“ he says.
In fact, the system has already found $31,000 worth of unpaid vehicle taxes so far, which more than pays for the cost of the system—$22,000.
Besides the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, the South Carolina Highway Patrol is testing the Mobile Plate Hunter, and its manufacturer says it has been contacted by other law enforcement agencies around the state.
The new system is causing some privacy concerns, however. Victoria Middleton, executive director of the South Carolina office of the American Civil Liberties Union, says license plate scanning can be legitimate when it’s used to find stolen vehicles or those used in a crime.
“The problem is the lack of standards, guidelines and controls – our technology has gotten ahead of our law,“ she says. “We face the real possibility that our movements in an automobile will be tracked and recorded. Scanners have potential to be combined with other technologies, such as surveillance cameras, database watch lists and other devices in ways that could seriously reduce our privacy. We should not accept this without public discussion and comment. We need controls to prohibit the systematic recording of a person’s times and locations in an automobile and also the sharing of this data with private companies.“
Sgt. Tanner says he and the officers he works with would never use the technology to track someone’s movements or invade their privacy. There has to be reasonable suspicion or probable cause that they had committed a crime. But, he adds, driving is a privilege, not a right, so there’s nothing wrong with law enforcement checking license plates.
According to the manufacturer, the Mobile Plate Hunter can record up to 3,600 license plates a minute, day and night in any kind of weather. It recognizes the plates of all 50 states, Canada and Mexico. It can process vehicles that are parked or moving in up to 4 lanes of traffic, and at speeds up to 75 mph.
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