Demand protections for privacy and against harmful data use.

Seattle City Council is fast-tracking a proposal to add automated license plate readers (ALPRs) to every police car in the city. On its own, this is a vast expansion of the city’s surveillance capabilities, giving police the ability to track the movements of anyone driving near a police vehicle.

What’s worse, the city wants to hold on to this data for 90 days and to store it in a private company’s cloud. This undermines existing legal protections that offer critical safeguards to protect the rights of pregnant people, trans people and immigrants. Imagine a scenario where law enforcement agencies from states with restrictive abortion laws gain unrestricted access to Seattle’s ALPR data. The implications for undocumented immigrants and reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare patients are alarming. Further, because BIPOC communities face disproportionately high policing, they would also likely be surveilled with this technology more than White, wealthy communities, reinforcing harmful systemic disparities.

Tell Seattle City Council to amend the proposal to protect privacy and against abuse.

SEND A MESSAGE

Urge city council to amend the ALPR proposal with commonsense protections for everyone who drives in Seattle. Make sure your concerns are heard before 2 PM, Tuesday, June 18.

Thanks for taking action,

ACLU of Washington