So, we're here today to discuss automated license plate recognition or ALPR as it's called. There are many different ALPR manufacturers including Flock, Axon, and Motorola. We've used ALPR here at the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office since 2006 or for about the last 20 years. Law enforcement uses ALPR data to help recover missing and endangered children, rescue human trafficking and kidnapping victims, identify vehicles connected to violent crimes, apprehend dangerous suspects and fugitives, recover stolen vehicles, and arrest drug traffickers. We recognize the recent concerns being raised about ALPR and we are committed to working with policy makers and communities to ensure that this technology is used responsibly. We're also committed to making sure that ALPR [snorts] is properly understood and this information is accurate because having this factual information out to the public is very important. Misinformation about what ALPR is and what it does is unhelpful. Misinformation breeds suspicion and adds to contempt as it has here. Misinformation also leads to a deterioration of public trust that we work so hard to earn and it threatens sound public policy and leads to ineffective public safety. Disagreement is fine when it's based on accurate facts, but misinformation leads to unhealthy disagreement. With that said, there are fact-based legitimate concerns about ALPR misuse and those concerns must be addressed through appropriate safeguards and accountability while preserving law enforcement access to a technology needed every day to protect communities and to save lives. Here in Pinellas County, we've been able to reduce crime in our service area >> [snorts] >> by over 64% over the last 10 years. So, serious crime, we've been able to reduce it by over 64% and as an example of that, in 2015, we had 529 stolen cars in our service area here in Pinellas County. That's not county-wide, that's just in the area serviced by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. So, in 2015, we had 529 stolen cars. And in 2025, we had 230 stolen cars. That's a 56% reduction. We've been using ALPR all that time. This reduction in crime is not by accident, it's by design and by using technology such as ALPR. Reducing the number of stolen cars in our community by 56%, it's a big deal. Now, we live in a technological age, which means we cannot fight crime in the Stone Age. As we cannot defund the police, we can also not detool the police, either. Taking away the tools that lead to effective crime reduction will inherently lead to crime increasing and the only winners if that happens are the criminals. So, let's talk facts, not social media myth about what ALPR does and does not do. ALPR captures a photograph. Now, again, hear me on that. ALPR captured a photograph of publicly displayed license plates when the vehicles are visible from public places. ALPR notes the place and the time that it takes a photograph. ALPR does not capture video. It doesn't do it. ALPR is not used for traffic enforcement, and you can't get a ticket from an ALPR camera. ALPR is motion-activated, and there is no continuous photographing or recording. Again, it's not video. ALPR cameras are asleep unless a car passes by, and it's motion-activated. There's no continuous photographing, no continuous recording, no continuous surveillance. Why do people keep saying that? It's not true. The license plate information and vehicle description that ALPR photographs is only information that an officer or any member of the public can observe and document with their own eyes. Trial and appellate courts across the United States. And remember, this isn't new technology. We've been using it here for 20 years, since 2006. And courts across the country have repeatedly rejected claims that law enforcement's use of ALPR violates the Fourth Amendment. And in all these court cases, the basic reason that the court say it doesn't violate the Fourth Amendment is very simple. License plates are required by law to be displayed in public, and ALPR systems photograph a license plate on a vehicle in a public place. Photographs taken with ALPR are no different than what any person could do by simply using their cell phone camera while walking down the street. ALPR automates what officers have long done manually and will continue to do on the computers in their cars. And that is to check license plates against law enforcement databases. But ALPR does it with greater speed and accuracy to enhance public safety. When an [snorts] officer runs a license plate from the computer in their car, the search is documented just as it does with ALPR. ALPR does not capture license plate photos in areas where a person has an expectation of privacy. It's simply taking a photograph of a license plate on the back of a car, on US 19, on Ulmerton Road, on 66th Street, or wherever cars are in the public space. ALPR does not, like it doesn't videotape. It doesn't run continuously. It does not photograph or identify people. So why is all this notion about all this surveillance and identifying people and following people? Doesn't do that. It only photographs license plates and vehicles [clears throat] in a public space, on a public road. Again, no video. Only motion-activated photos of license plates and vehicles. ALPR identifies vehicles. It doesn't even confirm that a particular person was behind the wheel or in a vehicle. >> [snorts] >> Other investigative work is required to determine whether a person was inside the vehicle at the time the photograph was taken, just as it would if someone took a photo from their cell phone on the roadside. >> [snorts] >> ALPR does not track vehicles and certainly does not track people because ALPR has no way to determine who is in a vehicle. >> [snorts] >> A camera, think about this, a camera that takes still photos, which is what ALPR is, is incapable of tracking. A photograph is only taken if a vehicle passes a camera. There's no tracking. Think about that. All these claims about flock tracking. How can you track someone from a still photograph? How can you do that? You can't. Cars also travel in so many more places than there are ALPR cameras. ALPR systems have no way to determine everywhere people go in their cars. An ALPR system checks law enforcement databases to determine whether the vehicle that passed by that camera is stolen, whether the registered owner has a warrant for their arrest, which I think most people would think is a good idea if somebody has a warrant for their arrest, they should get arrested, and whether the registered owner of that car has a suspended driver's license. It also alerts law enforcement if a license plate is associated with a missing or endangered person, or an ongoing criminal investigation, such as a murder. ALPR [snorts] does not establish probable cause for an arrest, prove guilt, or replace what an investigator does. An ALPR alert is so simply an investigative tool that must be verified before any action's taken. Now, much has been made about the sharing of ALPR data and access to historical records. The premise that ALPR providers sell the data, and that personal privacy is invaded or compromised is simply erroneous. First and foremost, where have you all reported about this? I haven't read this one single place in one media report or any social media post, nothing since people have been talking about this so intensely over the last several weeks. Florida law today, under Florida statute 316.077 mandates that all ALPR captured information is confidential. That means by existing law in the state of Florida, it cannot be released, distributed, sold, or in any way distributed except for law enforcement purposes. So, why all this notion that is being sold and distributed and all this stuff? No, it's private data. And the requirement applies to Flock, Axon, Motorola, and all the contractors who provide ALPR systems to law enforcement. That's in law today. It applies to us and it applies to them. Further, the contracts between law enforcement agencies and the ALPR companies dictate >> [snorts] >> that law enforcement owns the data and that they can only release it with our permission. But, think about this for a second. Beyond what the law says, and the law says it's very clear, it's confidential, it's private, it can't be released, can't be sold, nothing. Who would want it? What value is there in selling license plate photos? There's no commercial value in selling a license plate photograph, license plate data, like there is in selling websites or apps that you visit on your phone. If there is something for people to be worried about, it's all the websites and apps that sell our data. Companies know we're in this building today because we have apps open on our phones. Or when [snorts] I walk into the store across the street, I get and start getting ads to buy certain products. That's what to be worried about. That's getting in your business. That's tracking. That's not this. This is still photographs of a license plate on the back of a car on Omerton Road. That's it. The claims that ALPR data is sold is a social media fiction. There's no proof that anybody sold anything. Show me an example. Somebody bring forward where it's actually happened. It's all hype. It's all social media perpetuated stuff. >> [snorts] >> As far as storing the data captured by ALPR, it's important that law enforcement have access to stored license plate data because victims of sexual assaults and other serious crime often delay reporting by days, weeks, and sometimes even months. Access to this historical ARPL ALPR records can provide critical leads after an investigation begins. >> [snorts] >> Homicides may be discovered after a murder occurs and suspects are often developed weeks or months later. ALPR can provide an investigative lead indicating that a suspect's vehicle was in the area of a murder or in a completely different location. People with dementia and other cognitive disabilities off often travel by car significant distances away from their homes, and AP ALPR can only help find these people and return them safely to their families when the data is shared across jurisdictional lines. When children are abducted, they're transported across jurisdictional lines in many cases or even across state lines. ALPR queries allow law enforcement to locate the abducted children and return them home. And there's plenty of examples of that. Responsible [snorts] law enforcement ALPR data sharing is essential because missing people and criminal activity doesn't stop at jurisdictional lines or state lines. There is no doubt that ALPR solves crimes. So this past Sunday night, 3 days ago, right out here, US 19 and Ulmerton Road, two black males entered a food service business wearing a ski mask and they robbed the owner of the food service business at gunpoint. They stuck a gun to the guy's forehead. They pressed it against his forehead and they threatened to kill him. This this guy was just trying to operate his business. And they wanted all his money. They left with the money and surveillance video from an adjacent business showed that the two suspects left in a black Kia. But that video from the adjacent business didn't capture a tag. Detectives learned that those same two guys who stuck a gun in this guy's forehead and committed this robbery had also committed two robberies in Tampa. The same car was involved. Through ALPRs in the area, we identified the license plate number of the black Kia. We put a lookout in the LPR system and an officer in Daytona Beach located the car and stopped it. It's an example of how crucial it is to share this information across jurisdictional lines. So these two guys robbed the guy here, stuck the gun in his forehead, pressed it against his forehead, threatened to kill him, took his money, did two robberies in Tampa, heading back to Daytona, ALPR captures the tag, the officers stopped the car in Daytona Beach, and the guys had an AR-15, multiple firearms, recovered the victim's property in there, and these guys are in custody. But for the ALPR camera capturing the tag and alerting [snorts] the Daytona Beach officer, these armed robbers with this AR-15 and other guns, including the one they pointed to this guy's head, would still be on the street robbing people. In another recent case on June 5th of this year, a man was shot in the head and killed in Pinellas Park, down the street. We didn't have any suspects. We had information that the killer left the scene on a motorcycle. By checking the ALPR system in the area around the time of the murder, we're able to identify a tag on a possible suspect motorcycle. By running the tag in the state Department of Highway and Safety Motor Vehi- Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicle System in that database, we determined the registered owner of the tag captured on the ALPR was an associate of the murder victim, and through subsequent investigation established probable cause to arrest the suspect for first-degree murder. Without the ALPR reader identifying the tag on the motorcycle, the murderer would be on the street today and not sitting where he is in the Pinellas County Jail. ALPR actually, [clears throat] contrary to what some people are saying, protects individual rights. >> [snorts] >> Think about this. If you have a serious crime such as a robbery, and the only description we have regarding that robbery is a general vehicle description. The bad guys left in a green Toyota. It's all we got. Probably within about a 10-mile radius is that officers are going to stop every green Toyota in the area that matches the description. And I'm just telling you the way it's going to happen is if we have an armed robbery and two guys similar to what happened out here and [snorts] it's in the general area and it's a green Toyota, every green Toyota is getting stopped and it's probably going to be a felony traffic stop, which means guns are coming out and it's not going to be a comfortable situation for everybody. But we got to do what we got to do because an armed robbery happened and there was a green Toyota that's in close proximity to it. But if we have the ALPR camera just as we did this past Sunday night, now we got the tag number on the car. And if the ALPR camera captures that, the license plate information, like it did Sunday night, is going to help investigators narrow their focus and avoid stopping all these other people and they don't have an uncomfortable encounter with law enforcement. It avoids unnecessary stops. It avoids unnecessary encounters. Responsible law enforcement use of ALPRs requires clear policies, appropriate access controls, training, auditing, data security, and meaningful consequence for misuse. One of the legitimate concerns being raised is about officers who have improperly accessed ALPR systems for personal reasons, such as the search for ex-girlfriends, etc. >> [snorts] >> Now, there are times when some cops violate policies and they break the law. When they do this stupid stuff, we hold them accountable. They're fired and when appropriate, they're criminally charged. Any abuse is serious, but the abuses do not abound. The abuses get attention, but compared to how many officers have ALPR access and how many inappropriately access the systems, the abuses are very minimal. We don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater because a few people did something stupid. We support ARPO ALPR regulation. Law enforcement supports requiring that every agency that uses ALPR technology have a written policy governing it its use. All personnel with ALPR systems must receive training on the appropriate use and access to those systems. Policies have to clearly limit law enforcement's use of and access to the ALPR systems and data to legitimate public safety purposes. Policies must prohibit law enforcement from using ALPR to identify vehicles associated with any constitutionally protected activity, including protests and other First Amendment events, unless law enforcement is investigating a legitimate public safety threat to the event. Policies must require every ALPR query to include an official agency case number and a documented law enforcement purpose on the search screen. This information must be retained for audit purposes. Law enforcement agencies must proactively and routinely audit these ALPR systems to detect any potential misuse so that it can be addressed. Policies have to require meaningful discipline for misuse up to and including termination. We support laws prohibiting misuse and providing criminal penalties for violations. Policies have to establish appropriate ALPR data retention periods that ensure the data is available for legitimate investigative needs. Agencies have to protect ALPR data consistent with the safeguards that apply to all other criminal justice sensitive information, which we do. Access to and the sharing of ALPR data from any source by law enforcement personnel, of course, must be limited to legitimate law enforcement reasons. As technology evolves, law enforcement is committed to evaluating and strengthening the safeguards governing ALPR use. We stand ready to work with policy makers to address concerns, consider where additional protections may be appropriate, and reinforce [snorts] accountability while preserving legitimate public safety uses of this very important technology. We're going to continue here at the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office to use ALPRs while at the same time abiding by all of the laws that are in place.