Use the tool.
Protect privacy.
Automated license plate readers can help officers recover stolen cars, find missing people and respond quickly to dangerous situations. They should not become a system for casually reconstructing where ordinary residents have been.
A useful tool needs clear limits.
Flock is the platform Castle Rock uses today. My policy would apply to any automated license plate reader system the Town uses now or in the future.
There is a big difference between receiving a real-time alert about a stolen vehicle and searching stored location data to see where someone has been.
I support the first. For the second, I believe government should get a warrant. That is the line I would ask Castle Rock to put into policy.
Public safety without mass surveillance.
Keep the parts of the technology that help officers respond quickly. Put stronger safeguards around stored data and historical searches.
Keep real-time public-safety alerts.
Officers should continue receiving immediate alerts for stolen vehicles, wanted violent suspects, missing or endangered people and vehicles tied to active serious crimes. Police should not have to wait for a warrant before responding to an immediate public-safety alert.
Require a warrant for historical searches.
If law enforcement wants to search stored license plate data to reconstruct where a vehicle has been, a case number alone should not be enough. Get a warrant first.
Preserve an exigent-circumstances exception.
A kidnapping, missing child, fleeing violent suspect or imminent threat to life is different. Officers should be able to act immediately when delay could put someone in danger, with the emergency justification documented and reviewed afterward.
End open historical access for outside agencies.
Other agencies should not have standing access to browse Castle Rock's historical license plate data. Requests for stored data should come through Castle Rock and require a warrant, subject to the same emergency exception.
Seven days means seven days.
Routine ALPR data that is not tied to an active criminal investigation or retained as evidence should be automatically and permanently deleted after seven days. No quiet extension through backups, secondary databases or a different vendor.
Castle Rock owns and controls the data.
License-plate data collected on behalf of the Town should remain under Castle Rock’s control, not the vendor’s. Vendors should not be allowed to sell, share, monetize, repurpose or retain the data beyond what is necessary to provide the service. If the Town changes vendors, the old provider should be required to permanently delete the data and certify that deletion.
Audit every search and prevent mission creep.
Every search should be logged and reviewable. Major expansions, including longer retention, new forms of identification or new data-sharing arrangements, should require public notice and Town Council approval.
Castle Rock already gets some of this right.
This is not an argument to throw away a useful police tool. It is an argument for a clearer boundary around historical surveillance.
Castle Rock Police now retains ALPR data for seven days unless it becomes part of an active criminal investigation or is retained as evidence. Searches are logged, officers must provide a case number and approved reason, and the current system does not use facial recognition.
The department also says Colorado law-enforcement agencies can search Castle Rock's ALPR data for legitimate law-enforcement purposes. That is where I would tighten the policy: historical searches — whether by Castle Rock or another agency — should require judicial authorization unless there is a genuine emergency.
7-day retention.
Preserve the Town's current 7-day default and make it a firm policy standard for any future ALPR vendor.
Logging and accountability.
Continue logging every search and require supervisors to be able to audit who searched, when they searched and why.
A warrant requirement.
Add the protection that matters most: judicial approval before government searches stored data to reconstruct a person's past movements, except in exigent circumstances.
Castle Rock Police publishes information about its automated license plate reader program, retention rules, access controls and data-sharing practices.
What is the government trying to do?
Stop an immediate threat?
Use the technology. Get officers the information they need quickly and safely.
Search someone's past movements?
Get a warrant. A database should not eliminate the normal checks on government surveillance.
Keep the data just in case?
Delete it. If the information is not evidence, residents should not remain in a government location database indefinitely.
Catch criminals. Protect everyone else's privacy.
Public safety and civil liberties do not have to be competing goals. We can give police effective tools while still requiring government to justify historical surveillance before a judge.
