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Data from automated license plate readers, along with home security cameras, helped identify a suspect vehicle involved in a residential burglary on Dec. 12, 2023 at a home on Todo El Mundo in Woodside. The readers also helped link the suspects in the Woodside Hills neighborhood burglary to multiple other burglaries, “underscoring the gravity of their criminal activities,” according to police. This is according to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office, in its first quarterly report on the readers to the town, saying the technology is helping solve crimes.
The town council approved the ALPRs in January 2023 and contracted with Flock Safety, paying $61,000 for cameras installed around the perimeter of town and software, according to staff. Each year after, for up to four years, the town will pay $52,500 annually. ALPRs have been used by the town to monitor cars traveling through the area during a crime investigation. Woodside now has 17 active automated license plate readers, installed across town.
“ALPR data in all of our areas is essential now in crime fighting,” said Sgt. Patrick Taylor during a Jan. 23 presentation of the report on the readers, known as ALPRs, to the Woodside Town Council.
To create the quarterly report, Sheriff’s Office employees make a data audit by doing 10 random searches on browsing inquiries. The audit ensures that the town’s policy of ALPR usage is not violated, according to police.
Following the town’s ALPR usage and privacy policy, the Sheriff’s Office can access footage from the license plate readers to use in investigations.
The collected data provides evidence that can be used in court cases by capturing vehicles in a specific place and indicating the date and time they were there, police said.
Taylor explained that data collected by ALPRs is stored by Flock Safety and are provided to the Sheriff’s Office upon request. The data that is used in a criminal investigation will only be retained until the case is resolved.
“I remain supportive of these ALPRs. I think they’re a great safety value add to our community,” said Mayor Jenn Wall during the Jan. 23 council meeting. “But this is a powerful data capture by the government and we need to take the auditing of it and compliance with our policy really seriously.”
Upon the town council’s review, Mayor Wall said that she thinks the quarterly reports should be presented by the town manager with data provided by the Sheriff’s Office. With a long list of policies, Wall suggests that the quarterly audit be more robust and include policy compliance to data storage and protection as well.
“It might be useful to present summary statistics of crimes in Woodside and crimes that had Flock data involved in their resolution,” suggested Woodside resident David Mittelman during the meeting. “We can keep track of how useful in how much utility we’re getting out of the system for the purposes that we wanted.”
Bryant said he will look into ways that information on crimes in the area can be published by Flock onto the town’s online transparency portal.
Moving forward, Town Manager Kevin Bryant says three more ALPRs are expected to be installed in Woodside. Currently all license plate readers are capturing footage 24/7 and are powered by solar energy and Wi-Fi. Future installations in shaded areas will need to be hard-wired, drawing power from nearby sources.
As the town plans for three additional ALPR installations, two are planned to be installed by Alice’s Restaurant and Kings Mountain Road. Bryant and the sheriff’s department are in the process of identifying locations for additional ALPRs. Flock Safety is working to obtain permits from Caltrans.
Cameras do not yet have labels indicating they are license plate readers, but Bryant said the council plans to discuss signage at a future meeting.
Neighboring Atherton and Portola Valley are also using ALPRs.
Quarterly reports will be released every three months to provide transparency on how the ALPR data is being used. For more information on ALPRs and usage policies visit woodsidetown.org.
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