On December 11, 2018 the Council discussed proposed policy guidelines on how the Town will use and manage data collected by license plate recognition and optical camera technologies. These principles will act as policy guidelines for the police department as they develop and implement their standard operating procedures. Transparency and accountability for these systems is incredibly important and at the forefront of all our decision-making processes.

Cooperation between law enforcement and the community it serves is the key to any programs success. These policy guidelines serve that purpose. Giving clear direction and boundaries, from the community, regarding how the police department will manage data collected via license plate recognition and optical cameras. It shall be the policy of the Town of Addison that the data collected by License Plate Recognition and Optical Camera technologies be managed according to the following principles:

1. License Plate Recognition systems will be used by the police department for legitimate law enforcement purposes only investigating circumstances in which law enforcement officers reasonably believe that the plate data are relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.
2. Unless plate data has been flagged, retention periods should be measured in days and weeks, not months and years. The Town will not store data about innocent people for more than 45 days and will only keep flagged data when it is necessary for legitimate law enforcement investigative purposes.
3. Citizens will be able to find out if plate data of vehicles registered to them are contained in the data base used by the police department.
4. The Town will not share plate data with non-law enforcement, third-parties. The Town will also not share data with other law enforcement agencies that do not follow proper retention and access policies or that do not have clear policies in place to ensure such practices are followed.
5. The police department will report data usage publicly and on an annual basis.
6. The Town will not collect personally identifiable information.