ACLU-WA Seeks to Protect Privacy for Highway Toll Payments

The ACLU-WA is working with legislators to add privacy protections to bills that authorize tolling and set up a photo enforcement system on the Highway 520 bridge. Current design plans call for this tolling to be all-electronic, using transponders and cameras reading license plates of every vehicle that crosses the bridge. To ensure privacy, there should be cash payment lanes where no records are kept. Further, legislation should minimize the length of time records are kept for other payments, prohibit secondary use of those records, and prevent the use of toll transponders for surveillance purposes unrelated to toll payments.

The tolling will not go into effect until 2010, and the ACLU-WA will seek to add protections for privacy to the system during the 2010 legislative session.