Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) went active throughout Los Altos March 1; since then, the cameras have been analyzing the license plates of cars passing throughout the city in officials’ hopes of solving and responding to crimes.
The pilot program has been a long-time-coming project for the city’s police department; Los Altos City Council approved the one-year program in May 2023, three months after the police department initially presented the project for council approval in February. Over the last year, city officials have worked to fine-tune the policy and work with Flock Safety, the company that sold ALPRs to the city and in whose system the ALPR data lives.
Only eight of the city’s 15 ALPRs went live March 1; while the city initially approved seven more cameras, the fire on El Camino Real and paperwork with Santa Clara County to get the cameras filming along Foothill Expressway are delaying the installation of the remaining cameras.
The cameras have detected approximately 262,927 vehicles in the 30 days leading up to April 15, according to the city’s Flock Transparency Portal. There have also been 248 hotlist hits and 48 searches.
While the Los Altos Police Department could not respond to the Town Crier’s questions prior to the publication’s print deadline regarding crime-solving data since the ALPRs have been installed, they were installed for just that. Los Altos Hills preceded Los Altos in its implementation of ALPRs for the solving of burglaries and other pertinent crimes in town. Former Police Chief Angela Averiett proposed the integration of ALPRs into the police department’s approach to crime solving.
“In particular, the automated license plate reader or ALPR technology gives us the ability to objectively capture evidence to help us solve crime,” Averiett said. “And this objective evidence serves to further our efforts to gain and maintain the trust of the communities that we serve.”
The current iteration of the ALPR policy has undergone changes as the sharing of data and what crimes the ALPRs would be used for were hot-button issues for the council and the public. Currently, external organizations with access to the city’s ALPR data include El Cajon and El Cerrito police departments, and the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, according to the Flock Transparency Portal.
