SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — Utah lawmakers have opened a bill file to create statewide guardrails for automated license plate readers, as Salt Lake City’s debate over the cameras grows more heated.
The Legislature’s Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee did not vote Wednesday. Instead, lawmakers reviewed Utah’s current law, heard how police use the technology and focused on a question they say needs a clearer answer: What can private vendors do with the data?
Questions remain about the use and misuse of automatic license plate readers in Salt Lake City:
License plate readers capture a vehicle’s plate number, along with the time and location it passes a camera.
Utah law limits when government agencies can search that information. It must generally be tied to an active criminal investigation, a missing or endangered person, a wanted individual or a stolen vehicle. The data generally must be deleted after nine months.
Police leaders told lawmakers the technology can be valuable. Sheriff Chad Jensen described a triple-homicide case in which agencies used plate-reader alerts to track a suspect across several states and make an arrest in Colorado within 12 hours.
But lawmakers spent much of the hearing on what happens after a camera captures a plate.
Rep. Carrie Ann Chevrier questioned whether agency contracts may allow private vendors to use Utah data for artificial intelligence training. She specifically asked what Utah agencies had authorized.
Herriman Police Chief Cody Stromberg said Utah law enforcement supports an explicit restriction making Utah agencies the owners of Utah-generated data and barring vendors or third parties from using it outside their contracts.
Salt Lake City
Despite pushback, SLC Police back use of license plate cameras
Committee Chair Calvin Musselman said lawmakers are not considering a ban on license plate readers. He said the bill file is intended to create clear rules for agencies that use them while addressing legitimate privacy concerns.
That same issue is playing out in Salt Lake City, where the council was scheduled to discuss proposed local rules Tuesday but rescheduled the item.
The Salt Lake Tribune reported Council Chair Alejandro Puy said someone came to his home uninvited and put up signs opposing the cameras. Other council members reported similar visits.
Lawmakers expect the statewide proposal to return during the next legislative session. Salt Lake City has not yet set a new date for its own discussion.
