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The first report on how Menlo Park’s new mobile automated license plate readers are working was set to be delivered to the council on Tuesday, Nov. 18.
The report states that from July 1 through Oct. 1, the systems captured 263,430 license plates. Of those, 141 plates were tagged as being on an active wanted list.
“The vast majority of the hits were subsequently deemed to be a ‘false read’ after further review,” it said.
One stolen vehicle was recovered, resulting in the arrest of the driver, according to the report.
Police spokeswoman Nicole Acker explained that a “false read” occurs when the person operating the reader compares the photograph of a license plate to the computer-generated image of the plate, and the two don’t match.
“A simplified example of a type of false read would be when an 8 is read as a B and vice versa,” she said.
Menlo Park police officers also made three queries of the database for training purposes, the report said.
The council implemented a privacy policy in May that requires quarterly reports on the number of plates captured, how many were on the wanted list, and the number of inquiries made by officers and why. The policy also requires that data be deleted after six months unless needed for an ongoing investigation.
Review the complete agenda and associated staff reports here.
Tonight’s meeting starts at 6 p.m., an hour earlier than usual. It will be held in the council chambers at the Civic Center at 701 Laurel St., and streamed live online.
“Of those, 141 plates were tagged as being on an active wanted list. The vast majority of the hits were subsequently deemed to be a ‘false read’ after further review”
How much money and time are wasted on false positives? To relate two recent stories, do they turn off their body cameras after they get a hit?
July through Oct; 263,430 license plates, 140 ‘false reads’, 1 stolen vehicle recovered.
Your tax dollars at work.
To PlowShares:
If it was your stolen car that was recovered you might have a different opinion about the worth of the cameras.
He sounds like sour grapes. Not happy unless he has something to complain about.
Bob and Steve: You consider this an unqualified success? And worth our tax dollars, as well as loss of privacy?
“July through Oct; 263,430 license plates, 140 ‘false reads’, 1 stolen vehicle recovered.”
what privacy in a public place. This the first report. Lets see what the other reports show.
question: “Bob and Steve: You consider this an unqualified success? And worth our tax dollars, as well as loss of privacy?”
answer: “what privacy in a public place.”
Okay. Having read some of your posts in other sections, I expected more. Well, we (okay, I) agree to disagree.
I think it’s an almost complete waste of money (based on the report; you need more than one?) and an intrusion, a step towards police state. Also rife with opportunity for misuse. That said I expected the “courts say there is no expectation of privacy” responses, from the usual suspects. So let’s make it easy for others:
Do you consider this an unqualified success, and worth our tax dollars?
“Do you consider this an unqualified success, and worth our tax dollars?”
Not if this continues to be the hit rate.
That is too bad we get probably one a day minimum with close to 1300 hits from our cars alone not to mention hits from other agencies vehicles for cars on our lists. Sounds like they need to maximize the use of LPR not just put them up and hope for the best.