HARTFORD, Conn — Members of the Public Safety and Security committee have started discussions about possibly providing state grants for municipalities who currently do not have license plate readers.
“It's an expensive technology and some municipalities may benefit from it, but they may not be able to have the funding for it. So we're discussing perhaps grant programs through DESPP…through the state to fund municipalities who may benefit from this technology that don't currently have it,” said State Representative Greg Howard.
Rep Howard says it’s important people know how they work , and don’t work. “These license plate readers are fed what they call a hot list. So, if you have an Amber Alert and there's a vehicle that vehicle we put into the hot list and if that that particular vehicle drives past an LPR be mounted on a police vehicle or be stationary somewhere, we'll alert police officers in the area that that car is in that area so they can potentially stop that car and recover that child,” Howard continued, “it's not like you're driving down the road and you know, everything is copacetic your vehicle is not on the Hot List and all of your information pops up on somebody's screen that doesn't happen.”
In November of last year, it was a license plate reader that notified Southington police of a vehicle that was stolen which led to the arrest of two men on larceny, drugs and weapon charges.
We reached out to groups who might be opposed to these readers like the ACLU but the weren’t available for comment. Rep. Howard says he understands there may be privacy concerns, but this is like any other investigative tool.
“I will certainly stand against any measures to restrict the use of these as long as it's within the parameters of the privacy concerns that we've always had. And I don't think that these license plate readers as they're being used today and the technology as it exists, breaches that, that expectation of privacy that the average person has driving down the street,” said Howard.
No bill or proposal has been drafted yet to provide this funding.
Jake Garcia is a multimedia journalist for FOX61 News. He can be reached at jgarcia@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
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