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SALT LAKE CITY — The state has been served with a lawsuit over its law regarding license plate reader technology. The plaintiffs say the law has done serious damage to their companies.
The plaintiffs are the California-based Vigilant Solutions, Inc. and the Texas-based Digital Recognition Network, Inc., and it’s over the Utah Automatic License Plate Reader System Act.
“It has already had a significant monetary impact on our corporation and our shareholders," said DRN Founder Todd Hodnett.
Automated license plate readers use small, high-speed cameras to photograph thousands of plates per minute. The technology also provides a date/time stamp, the location of the image capture, and then uses software to convert license plate numbers and letters into a computer-readable text format.
The law sets strict limits on who can use this kind of technology, Hodnett said, and they were essentially muscled out. Because of this, he said they had to cease operations in Utah.
Hodnett said their main argument will be that the law infringes on their First Amendment rights. They’re prepared to cite other cases and arguments reportedly made by the ACLU.
“They assert that when in public spaces, where you are lawfully present, you have the right to photograph anything that’s in plain view. That includes a picture of a federal building, a transportation facility and police,” Hodnett said.
But Sen. Todd Weiler, who sponsored the bill, said he is concerned about how the collected data can be used. He said these cameras not only take mass pictures of license plates that pass by them, but they time-stamp those pictures, note the direction the cars were heading and stores all that information.
“I was concerned that the data could be used, basically, to do a search without a warrant,” he said.
Weiler grew especially concerned when the DEA wanted to put the cameras along I-15 in southern Utah, he said.
“Every time you drove to St. George, the federal government would know,” he explained.
But, Hodnett insists their data has never been used for nefarious purposes.
