Nov 222017
 

The Center for Human Rights and Privacy recently discovered that the Alameda County Sheriff installed a license plate reader at the entrance to Highland Hospital’s emergency room. The information was included in a list of 29 agencies that submit license plate reader to the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC), a local joint fusion center.

However, when the East Bay Times asked about its license plate readers in February 2017, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office reported that it had about six license plate readers, mounted to patrol cars and didn’t mention the license plate reader at Highland Hospital.

Although the license plate reader was installed as part of an Alameda County General Services Agency project, it appears that the Alameda County Sheriff configured the license plate reader to send its images and data to NCRIC. The Alameda County Sheriff signed a Memorandum of Understanding with NCRIC in October 2014 regarding license plate reader data. According to NCRIC, the Alameda County General Services Agency did not have a MOU with NCRIC as of November 20, 2017.

The license plate reader has two cameras to capture images of vehicles and license plates as vehicles enter the emergency room drop-off area of Highland Hospital from E. 31st Street.

According to information from NCRIC, the license plate reader captured data from 293,148 vehicles from December 2016 to October 2017. Earlier data was not available. Once the information is submitted to NCRIC, it is made available to dozens of agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which can use it to identify undocumented immigrants for deportation.

The license plate reader was installed as part of a project to replace the Acute Tower at Highland Hospital in 2014. According to a change order for the project, installation of the license plate reader cost $74,622. The license plate reader is from 3M and was previously known as the SpikeHD P382.

In addition to the photos below, the license plate reader can be seen in Google’s Street View.

Alameda Co. Sheriff license plate reader at Highland Hospital

 

Closeup of Alameda Co Sheriff license plate reader at Highland Hospital in Oakland

Coverage in the East Bay Express: Highland Hospital Surveillance Stirs Concerns

Dec 062015
 

As part of an effort to identify a suspect in kidnapping attempts near Willard Middle School in Berkeley, the Berkeley Police Department borrowed an automated license plate reader (ALPR) from the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC), the local fusion center.

The ALPR is part of a trailer that at first appears to be just a sign to get drivers to slow down. The ALPR consists of cameras facing cars driving towards and away from the trailer. The trailer uses Willard Middle School to power the license plate cameras and signs, using an electrical power cord that extends from the trailer to the school.

Berkeley Police Detective Scott Castle contacted the fusion center on October 20, two days after two reported kidnapping attempts near the middle school to request the mobile ALPR. See Berkeleyside for more coverage.

The license plate reader consists of four cameras, two in each direction. One camera captures an image of the license plate that is suitable for a computer to process into a format that the computer can recognize. The other camera captures an image of the vehicle and possibly the occupant(s) of the vehicle. The license plate readers appear to be 3M Mobile ALPR cameras. The trailer submits the captured images, which include a date/time stamp and geographic location information from a Garmin GPS, to a data warehouse maintained by the NCRIC fusion center. The NCRIC fusion center collects similar data from more than a dozen local law enforcement agencies and makes it available to dozens of local law enforcement agencies, plus the IRS, the US Air Force, UC San Francisco, DMV, FBI, DHS, Stanford University, and others.

The NCRIC retains all of the data collected, including the vehicle images, for at least a year, but may retain it for longer if the data is part of an investigation.

Trailer used by NCRIC to capture license plate and vehicle images

Trailer used by NCRIC to capture license plate and vehicle images

3M Mobile ALPR camera in NCRIC mobile trailer

3M Mobile ALPR camera used to capture images of license plates and vehicles.

NCRIC mobile ALPR trailer cables

Cables attached to the NCRIC mobile ALPR trailer