The Maui Police Department said it uses about three dozen controversial automatic license plate reading cameras to help with law enforcement, but doesn't use them for surveillance purposes.
MPD discussed its use of ALPR cameras this week during hearings at the Maui County Council, which is considering legislation to restrict how data from those cameras are used.
The hours of discussion at the council hearings come as companies like Flock Safety have come under fire because the data they collect can be used to track the movements of individuals — even those who haven’t committed any crimes. There's also been reporting of law enforcement already abusing that information.
MPD said it currently uses 32 cameras, with others broken, stolen, or vandalized. The open-source DeFlock Maps shows about 40 cameras on Maui, representing about half of the total in the state. It says around two-thirds are Flock cameras, and the rest are from Motorola Solutions.
The police department said its cameras are from Motorola. They can take photos but not video, though video recording is something the department is interested in when purchasing new equipment.
MPD said that the information from ALPR cameras is stored in a secure server that Motorola can't access, but license plates that have been flagged can alert police if they're detected.
It's a helpful tool for an understaffed police department, MPD Lt. Taylor Kamakawiwoʻole said at a council hearing on Thursday.
“The way that we look at the ALPR cameras is that instead of posting officers on the corners of every street looking out for these vehicles that are traveling, we have … another set of eyes, and that will alleviate and will save a lot of manpower,” Kamakawiwoʻole said.
He added, “If we were fully staffed, it would be a lot easier” to do the work without the cameras.
Lt. Christina Bonacorsi said a recent pilot program using about a dozen ALPR cameras helped solve dozens of cases.
“We had at least 40 cases solved, and that was within a year span,” she said. “And that was an attempted murder suspect, that was a hit-and-run robbery suspect — just from these cameras.”
MPD said it also has policies to avoid internal abuse of the data, including stalking.
Some of the councilmembers acknowledge the nuance surrounding the decision to use the cameras to increase public safety.
“I know we have to find a balance between technology, privacy … I just want to say that I get that finding the balance is difficult,” said Councilmember Nohelani Uʻu-Hodgins.
The discussion informed the council’s decision to move along an amended version of Bill 113, which would allow ALPR camera data to only be used for a “legitimate law enforcement purpose,” such as police investigating a criminal offense, locating missing people or stolen vehicles, or protecting people from injury or death.
It would also ban the sale or commercial use of license plate data, and its use in immigration enforcement, which has been another controversial use of that information in the U.S.
Gabe Johnson was the only councilmember who voted no against the bill during Thursday’s hearing — but only because he wanted even stronger restrictions on the cameras.
He suggested capping the number of ALPR cameras to what MPD already has, or an outright moratorium on using them on county property.
“I live on Lānaʻi, and I know a thing or two about heavy-handed uses of power, and I'm a proponent of more of a light touch instead of a heavy hand,” Johnson said at the meeting. “I think the police officers … make a very good point that we don't want it until we need it, but I know this department can be capable of keeping people safe as well as respecting privacy rights."
The council deferred another measure, Bill 112, which would have limited the use of cameras with facial recognition capability, upon finding out that MPD doesn't use that. Critics have also called out ALPRs for using facial recognition to track people.
There was interest among councilmembers to introduce a stronger bill that would ban the use of facial recognition cameras.
