Vermont’s largest city wants to use automatic license plate readers to enforce traffic laws. Burlington’s lobbying push in the upcoming legislative session could resurrect an old debate about the technology, which has fallen out of favor in recent years.
Burlington city councilors last week unanimously signed off on a list of legislative priorities for the Queen City, which included getting approval to use automatic license plate readers to enforce speed limits and monitor red lights.
Automatic license plate readers were once a common tool among Vermont police agencies, with more than 40 departments using them about a decade ago. The cameras, mounted on police cars, would scan license plates to see if the cars were associated with any criminal cases or traffic offenses, like driving with a suspended license or expired registration.
From July 2014 to Dec. 2015, Vermont police departments logged more than 8.6 million license plates using the scanners, according to a report submitted to lawmakers.
But the cost of the devices and state regulations led many agencies to stop using them, Seven Days reported. The devices also were rarely useful in solving crimes, according to a 2014 Vermont Public analysis.
In 2021, only one law enforcement agency — Essex County Sheriff Department — was still using automatic license plate readers, according to a report to the Legislature.
“I love them, I thought they were great,” said Essex County Sheriff Trevor Colby, in a recent interview. “I could know there was a wanted person in the car before I got out, but that didn’t happen all that often.”
Colby’s department stopped using its license plate reader around 2022 because the state stopped maintaining the database that held the license plate data. Without the database, there was no way to check if a scanned car belonged to a person with a criminal background or if they had any traffic violations, Colby said.
Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak said last week the technology would be an efficient way to make roads safer and free up Burlington police officers.
Civil liberties advocates have long raised privacy concerns about license plate reader technology. And some Burlington city councilors also raised concerns that the data could potentially be used by the federal immigration authorities to target people.
Mulvaney-Stanak said her administration would only use license plate readers if they could ensure sensitive information wouldn’t be shared with third parties, including federal immigration authorities.
The legal landscape for the use of the devices in Vermont is murky, and even key lawmakers are unclear on the rules governing their use.
A 2013 law placed guidelines around the use of license plate readers, including how long police agencies should hold onto the data, when it could be released to other agencies, and annual reporting requirements to the Legislature.
Those guidelines were set to be repealed this summer, unless the Agency of Transportation set up a pilot program to use automatic license plate readers at highway work zones, according to Rep. Barbara Rachelson.
The statute also contains a provision that bans the use of license plate readers, which appears to go into effect if the Agency of Transportation fails to start their pilot program.
Rachelson, who’s long advocated for license plate reader regulations, and other lawmakers say they haven’t been updated on the pilot program.
“My understanding is that the program has not started — I'm not sure why, to be frank,” said Sen. Becca White, vice-chair of the Senate Committee on Transportation.
Agency officials say they have not launched the program, which would have used the readers to issue speeding tickets in work zones on the interstate.
No law enforcement agency had the staffing levels to handle issuing the tickets, said Jeremy Reed, chief engineer at the Agency of Transportation.
The Legislature needs to clear up the rules around these devices, Rachelson said.
“We need to revisit this, like, what is happening with it,” Rachelson said. “Which laws are still in place … and who's enforcing it?”
