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Free toolkit · Council questions

Five questions to take
to the next meeting.

Hand this to the clerk for the record, or read the questions during public comment. The absence of an answer is itself an answer.

1
Did the council approve this ALPR contract in a public vote, or did the police department sign it without public input?
Why it mattersMany ALPR deployments are signed at the chief or city-manager level using existing budget lines, bypassing public hearings entirely.
2
How long is plate data stored, and is our city sharing it outside state and local agencies?
Why it mattersRetention and sharing are the two biggest privacy variables. Some cities have cut retention to as little as 14 days and pulled their data out of national sharing networks.
3
Has our data been queried by ICE, by out-of-state agencies, or in connection with abortion or gender-affirming care?
Why it mattersA Texas deputy used these cameras to run tens of thousands of searches across multiple states to track a woman who sought an abortion. Out-of-state and federal access is the default, not the exception.
4
What is the audit trail when an officer runs a plate, and who independently reviews it?
Why it mattersWithout independent review, off-policy lookups — ex-partners, journalists, political opponents — go unnoticed. There are documented cases of officers misusing these systems personally.
5
Will the contract require a warrant for access, and a sunset clause forcing a public reauthorization vote?
Why it mattersA federal judge has ruled that warrantless use of this kind of camera network can be a Fourth Amendment search. A sunset clause guarantees the public gets to revisit the decision.
Pair this with the three-minute council script and a public records request for the actual contract. All materials at whatsthatcamera.org/learn.
whatsthatcamera.org/learn CC-BY 4.0 · edit & translate freely