NATCHEZ, Miss. – The Adams County Board of Supervisors approved Sheriff Travis Patten’s plans to install license plate readers on county roads and city streets that he said should provide “huge” benefits for local law enforcement.
These high-tech camera systems record license plates to automatically check them against “hot lists” of wanted, stolen or missing vehicles. When a listed car passes by one of these surveillance cameras, it alerts police agents to follow up.
Patten on Monday got Adams County supervisors to approve an agreement to be made with Natchez aldermen and Mayor Dan Gibson along with the Mississippi Department of Transportation for installing automatic license plate readers. They’ve been purchased and will be placed on street poles along selected thoroughfares in and around Natchez, Patten said.
“I can’t tell you how invaluable it is to have these license plate readers,” the sheriff said. “It’s huge.”
“ALPR systems have proven to be a valuable investigative tool for law enforcement,” states a report posted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “Advances in machine learning, computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) have made ALPR systems more affordable and more effective.”
However, the American Civil Liberties Union has expressed concerns about the potential “unfettered surveillance” license plate recognition systems could have to invade the privacy of innocent people.
“License plate readers can serve a legitimate law enforcement purpose when they alert police to the location of a car associated with a criminal investigation,” states an ACLU report. “But such instances account for a tiny fraction of license plate scans, and too many police departments are storing millions of records about innocent drivers.”
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