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Monterey police report ALPR successes; privacy and vendor audit concerns draw public scrutiny
Summary
The Monterey Police Department reported that its license‑plate readers helped several investigations and a rapid response to a threatened attack, but a vendor 'statewide lookup' feature was briefly enabled at go‑live and later disabled. Privacy advocates and residents pressed the city for stronger vendor controls and network auditing.
The Monterey Police Department presented its 2025 automated license‑plate recognition (ALPR) report to the City Council on April 7, saying fixed and mobile readers generated investigative leads in several serious cases — from stolen‑vehicle recoveries to helping officers locate a suspect who threatened a large public event.
“ALPRs located a vehicle used in a threat against the Monterey Bay Half Marathon; investigators isolated the car and located a suspect’s apartment within 31 minutes,” Chief Dave Hobber said, describing one high‑profile example. Staff said the system — 35 active fixed cameras and 15 vehicle units in 2025 — logged roughly 12,500 vehicle captures daily and yielded about 5,889 searches supporting 800 investigations during the year.
But the presentation and public comment also focused on network security and vendor practices. A network audit identified that a vendor feature known as “statewide lookup” had been enabled earlier in the system’s live roll‑out; staff said the feature was disabled when it was discovered and that they have required additional training and logging requirements. “When we spoke to the vendor about the statewide lookup feature, they told us it would not have been enabled without authorization,” Hobber said. “We disabled that feature on June 4, 2025 when it was identified and have tightened audits since.”
Privacy advocates and residents urged more restrictive controls and external audits. “Our concern remains the potential for misuse and for external agencies or private parties to access sensitive location history,” a representative of a civil liberties group said in public comment. Several speakers pointed to investigative reporting and outside audits alleging security weaknesses in the vendor’s deployments elsewhere.
Council members pressed staff on vendor transparency, auditing procedures and whether any out‑of‑state or federal searches had returned data from Monterey’s system; staff said they saw numerous pings to the network while the statewide lookup feature was active but no confirmed evidence in their logs that federal agencies had returned Monterey data. Council directed staff to continue documenting network audits, follow up on vendor security improvements, and return with any additional policy changes recommended by the city attorney.
The department’s report is published on the Monterey Police website with a public portal showing camera locations and summary audit metrics. Council members requested continued transparency and regular updates on the network audit trail and vendor compliance.
