The Mountain View City Council debated whether or not to install automatic license plate readers in the city on Tuesday night.
If the council approves them, Mountain View would be the latest city to install these readers — several neighboring cities have already started using them.
But there are some concerns. NBC Bay Area spoke with some residents who have mixed feelings. Some say they’re for them, while others are skeptical about what law enforcement will use them for.
“It is a good idea in the sense of it’ll improve detection and probably tracing,” said city resident Sunil Singh. “But at the same time, a little hesitant it’ll get used for all kinds of small things. Like you’re living in your residential area, you take a left turn when there's nobody there and you could get a ticket.”
Those license plate readers capture a still image of the back of each passing car on the street. That license plate is then compared with information on the national crime information center and provides immediate alerts.
Law enforcement say the system is used for amber alerts, auto thefts, mail and package theft investigations, hit and run investigations, and if a car is found at numerous crime scenes.
Some of the concerns addressed in a presentation given by police at the meeting: it will not be used for facial recognition, immigration enforcement, out-of-state investigation or traffic citations.
Officer said the data is about vehicles and their locations, not people.
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