The Shawano Common Council signed off on a new policy Feb. 11 for the Shawano Police Department when it comes to automated license plate readers.
The plate readers are used by law enforcement to support investigative work, as well as help to recover stolen vehicles. However, the readers have raised some concerns by public officials when it comes to data retention, privacy protections, public transparency and access controls.
The police department already has the technology, but the policy has not been updated to give guidelines on the do’s and don’ts of the plate readers, according to Police Chief Mike Musolff.
“This is something that the mayor and I have discussed in the history of recently, I guess,” Musolff said. “We have eight cameras in Shawano, and the reason we looked into this was to see if we had a policy, and we didn’t.”
The policy states that plate reader data is confidential and for official police use only and only shared when the law requires. Only certified officers will be able to operate the plate reader or access the data.
There has been concern in the state and country about the use of the plate readers and the availability of the data gleaned from them. Musolff noted a news report in Wisconsin about officer abuse of the system in Neenah prompted the check for guidelines.
“An officer may have inappropriately used these cameras — I should say ‘allegedly’ because there’s been no convictions,” Musolff said. “That’s a concern of us if that does happen, so we do train with these cameras. I thought it was time we had the policy in place.”
Other uses for the plate readers include if there’s been a child abduction or if someone elderly goes missing, according to Musolff.
“The good news is that we’ve had procedures in place where we’re following up every time someone uses one of those (plate readers) and each time something gets entered into that system, it has to be put in with a case number,” he said. “We’re making sure no one’s using that in a nefarious way.”
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
