Officials with West Region OPP say a project to install automated licence plate recognition (ALPR) and in-car-camera systems (ICC) in all of its patrol vehicles has finished.
The system, which includes in-car video recording equipment with licence plate recognition capabilities, is now in all front-line vehicles throughout the OPP’s West Region area, which covers southwestern Ontario.
Cameras automatically scan licence plates on nearby vehicles and notify officers if any flagged plates come up, such as if a vehicle’s tags are expired, if a plate is suspended, or if it has been linked to a missing person’s report, Amber Alert, or to a criminal investigation.
In a media release on Monday, police said that since the systems were rolled out in West Region, officers had been “surprised by the high number of drivers flagged by the system for operating vehicles that do not have valid, registered plates.”
“In addition to the benefits that will come with having an objective video recording of an interaction between an officer and member of the public, the integrated ALPR functionality will dramatically enhance the ability of an officer to detect licence plates that are linked with criminal or traffic offences,” police said in a statement.
“These technologies will be used to gather enhanced evidence to be used in the prosecution of offences and will also highlight the professionalism our members display every day as they work to ensure safe communities.”
The OPP has used the technology for just over a decade, but is now rolling it out to all of its patrol vehicles. The OPP’s East Region was the first to have all of its vehicles fitted with the systems, and work began in February to do the same in West Region, according to the OPP.
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Locally, London police has been using ALPR systems in its cruisers since at least 2016.
The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC) has published guidelines for Ontario police forces in using such systems as it relates to issues of privacy and data security under Ontario privacy law.
In addition to quickly capturing and matching licence plate numbers to a hot list database, such systems “can also be set up to capture other information, including the location of vehicles at specific times and dates,” the guidelines warn.
Without adequate controls, ALPR systems can enable surveillance and profiling when collecting date, time and vehicle geolocation data — data which could reveal other sensitive personal information about an individual, such as a doctor’s office appointment or participation in a protest, the IPC says.
In a statement, Derek Rogers, regional media relations coordinator for West Region OPP, said the force worked in consultation with the IPC to ensure compliance with provincial privacy laws.
Licence plate data that doesn’t result in a hit on a list of plates in poor standing is purged automatically from the system within 24 hours, he said.
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