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Police say ALPR data is department‑owned and used for investigations only
Summary
Police described the city's automatic license‑plate reader system, saying the department owns and maintains the ALPR database, does not sell or share the data, and limits access to trained personnel for law‑enforcement purposes; transparency portal and system scope were discussed.
Police staff briefed council on the city's automatic license‑plate reader (ALPR) system, explaining how high‑speed fixed and mobile cameras convert plate images into computer‑readable data that the department stores and uses for investigations.
"This database is owned, operated, and maintained by the police department. We do not share that data, and we only use it for law enforcement purposes only," the department representative said, adding that vendors supply the operating technology but do not have access to the stored data. Staff also confirmed the city maintains a transparency portal (transparency.safety.com/hagerstown‑md‑pd) describing what the system detects (license plates) and what it does not detect (facial recognition, people, gender, race). Council members asked about interoperability with other city cameras and retention/access controls; staff said other high‑speed cameras can feed analytics into the ALPR system but that the ALPR searches are limited to trained personnel entering a reason for a search.
