We have previously written about the availability of this license plate recognition data (LPR; also known as license plate reader data) from the investigative research database TLO.com. Currently, TLO is the only investigative research database/service source we are aware of for that information.

Pending California Senate Bill 893 (SB 893) would extend the period law enforcement could retain LPR data and limit access to this kind of data outside of law enforcement. SB 893 would prohibit the sale of LPR "data for any purpose" or the sharing of LPR data "to an agency that is not a law enforcement agency or an individual who is not a law enforcement officer."

Additionally, under current California law, LPR data cannot be retained for more than 60 days. SB 893 seemingly extends that period beyond five years but limits access to data held for more than five years "only for law enforcement purposes, pursuant to warrant or other court order."

With an apparent aim to protect the privacy of California residents, SB 893 also contains a provision that allows "an individual whose information is sold or disclosed in violation of this title [to] bring a civil action and shall be entitled to recover any and all consequential and incidental damages, including all costs and attorney’s fees."

According to TLO's original press release announcing their "Vehicle Sightings" license plate reader database, their collection encompasses "a massive database of one BILLION vehicle sightings and the addition of up to 50 million new sightings each month." "Vehicle Sightings provides valuable information for locating subjects and investigating the historical whereabouts of individuals and vehicles." While it is not stated how these sightings are captured, law enforcement agencies and auto reposession companies have been utilizing similar license plate capturing technology for some time.

At a recent live MCLE investigative research seminar a lawyer told us how he was able to use license plate reader data to locate the vehicle of an individual who had been avoiding service of process - and determine that the location where the vehicle was parked was the individual's place of employment. The attorney was then able to locate the individual and serve the papers. Passage of California SB 893 would apparently end this kind of access to non-law enforcement users in California.

The post California Senate Considers Bill Limiting Sale of License Plate Data appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.

Today we tested out the Advanced Search - Vehicle Sightings database. According to the TLO Web site, "it offers an overview for the sightings of vehicles by license plate. Under 'Sightings Preview' you will find the pictures of the vehicles at the time of the sighting. From this free preview, you will be able to run a detailed Vehicle Sightings Report for Current (last 30 days), Recent (31 to 90 days) and/or Historical (older than 90 days) sightings. The Vehicle Sightings Report will display a picture of the vehicle at the time of the actual sighting, as well as exact date, time, and location (latitude/longitude with a link to maps)."

You can search by full or partial license plate number and can add in a state if you know it. We searched for the two vehicles we own usng the full license plate number and added in the state where the vehicles are registered. The result that was returned was for a vehicle with a slightly different drivers license plate. The results provided a picture of the vehicle (and Sandia Peak in the background), its license plate, the date and time of the sighting, longitude/latitude, and that it was sighted in "Tamaya, NM." (Note that while there is no such town in NM, that is the name of the Santa Ana Pueblo in the tribe's native language.)

While the content of the results are very impressive, bringing back a wrong result was not useful. If there were no results for the license plate we searched, it would be better to have been informed there were no results instead of trying to bring back a sighting of a vehicle with a license plate number that was close to our number.

In response to our clicking the "Unhappy" button that accompanied TLO's results for this search, we received the following response from TLO Customer Support:

"Licence [sic] Plate Recognition (LPR) software, along with optical recognition software in general, has gotten a lot more accurate over the years. However it isn't perfect yet and there are still some characters that give them trouble I's an 1's and 7's and T's for instance. This is why we give you the Sightings Preview to view before you run the report."

The post Investigative Research Database TLO Offers Vehicle Sightings Database appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.