BALTIMORE — Baltimore police will soon have access to license plate reading technology with 10 years of data on residential vehicles, allowing the department to access personal information of residents through surveillance.
The Board of Estimates approved a $1.46 million contract between the Baltimore Police Department and Thomson Reuters CLEAR, effective through January 2030. The software, known as License Plate Recognition (LPR), allows officers to cross-reference scans with personal information on drivers identified, including location history, activity history and social media activity.
“This provides [Baltimore Police Department] access to public records, to proprietary data sources, provides us information and reference to people, phone numbers, addresses, asset searches.” Col. Jack Herzog said. “[The license plate readers] give us information that we’re able to use to build out leads.”
Herzog said that Baltimore Police Department would only use the CLEAR database, not add resident information to it, after Mayor Brandon Scott and City Council President Zeke Cohen asked for clarification on data sharing within the database.
BE THE FIRST TO COMMENT
Read the full story by visiting the Baltimore Sun website.
Local Story
